o have been made that way. I'm sorry you don't
approve. I supposed you did once."

"Oh, I do approve--highly." He left her, and she heard him getting his
hat and stick in the little hallway, as if he were going out of doors.
She called to him, "What I wonder is how a man so self-centred that he
can't look at his wife for days together, can tell whether another
woman's eyes are smouldering or not."

Maxwell paused, with his hand on the knob, as if he were going to make
some retort, but, perhaps because he could think of none, he went out
without speaking.

He stayed away all the forenoon, walking down the river along the
squalid waterside avenues; he found them in sympathy with the squalor in
himself which always followed a squabble with his wife. At the end of
one of the westward streets he found himself on a pier flanked by vast
flotillas of canal-boats. As he passed one of these he heard the sound
of furious bickering within, and while he halted a man burst from the
gangway and sprang ashore, followed by the threats and curses of a
woman, who put her head out of the hatch to launch them after him.

The incident turned Maxwell faint; he perceived that the case of this
unhappy man, who tried to walk out of earshot with dignity, was his own
in quality, if not in quantity. He felt the shame of their human
identity, and he reached home with his teeth set in a hard resolve to
bear and forbear in all things thereafter, rather than share ever again
in misery like that, which dishonored his wife even more than it
dishonored him. At the same time he was glad of a thought the whole
affair suggested to him, and he wondered whether he could get a play out
of it. This was the notion of showing the evil eventuation of good.
Their tiffs came out of their love for each other, and no other quarrels
could have the bitterness that these got from the very innermost
sweetness of life. It would be hard to show this dramatically, but if it
could be done the success would be worth all the toil it would cost.

At his door he realized with a pang that he could not submit the notion
to his wife now, and perhaps never. But the door was pulled open before
he could turn his latch-key in the lock, and Louise threw her arms round
his neck.

"Oh, dearest, guess!" she commanded between her kisses.

"Guess what?" he asked, walking her into the parlor with his arms round
her. She kept her hands behind her when he released her, and they stood
conf