t, after all, is still worth having, the friendship and the
protection of a devoted husband who has worked for them and made their
life secure. No, they will sulk and make things wretched and hopeless.

Man is not invariably wrong, and he is not to be blamed for his
coldness any more than he is to be blamed or scolded for his want of
appetite. Perhaps if the dinner had been prepared with more care, he
would have eaten it with avidity.

A great French poet says that happy nights make happy days in
matrimony. I do not think that he is right. I rather believe in the
reverse: Cheerful days, spent in delightful companionship, will make
later meetings perfectly delicious. But it is on the woman, much more
than on the man, that this happy result depends. There is no conceit on
the part of a man in saying so. This line of conduct is dictated by the
difference which exists between a man and a woman.

I am ready to admit that women have grievances in this respect; but
they are not of man's making, they are of Nature's, and no blame can be
attached to man for it. How many couples, wretched and miserable, could
be happy if women could, or would, realize the truth of this statement!
But, as a rule, they will not. Their motto is, 'What is good for the
goose is good for the gander.'

But it isn't.

_Non_, madame, the gander, unfortunately for your sex, is not
constituted like the goose, and it is for him an impossibility to eat
the dish you offer him if his appetite is not tempted. _You_ can, but
he cannot. The whole problem of happiness in matrimony lies in this
nutshell.

CHAPTER XVIII

DOES JEALOUSY COME FROM TRUE LOVE?

The different kinds of girls that men seek in matrimony--Jealousy
is intensified, not created, by love--Why should not a married man
continue to admire women?--I want to knock down a newly-married
woman's husband--'Who would "polyg" with him?'

There are men who would not think of courting a woman with a view to
marrying her if they knew she had been engaged before. On the contrary,
there are others who marry women who have spent their girlhoods in
flirting and have been engaged a dozen times. These women seem to have
a special sort of attraction for men who feel proud of winning a
'prize' that has been so much sought after, and who are very much like
those people who do not know the value of a picture until, at a sale,
they hear men bid higher and higher for the purchase, and con