the clock struck ten,
the canary sang happily, and a rival melody came from the kitchen, in
cracked soprano, mercifully muted by distance and two closed doors.

"See what you've started," Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the
magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the
little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death--I've
been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of
my own affairs, to the exclusion of everything else."

"But your affairs interest me extremely, I wish I knew of some way to
help you."

"In the last analysis, of course, it comes to this--either go on and
make the best of it, or quit."

[Sidenote: The Marriage Vow]

"Not--not divorce," breathed Madame. Her violet eyes were wide with
horror.

"No," Edith answered, shortly, "not divorce. Separation, possibly, but
not divorce, which is only a legal form permitting one to marry again.
Personally, I feel bound by the solemn oath I took at the altar, 'until
death do us part,' and 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so
long as we both shall live.' All the laws in the country couldn't make
me feel right with my own conscience if I violated that oath."

"If the marriage service were changed," Madame said, nodding her
approval, "it might be justified. If one said, at the altar, 'Until
death or divorce do us part,' or 'Until I see someone else I like
better,' there'd be reason for it, but, as it is, there isn't. And
again, it says, 'Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.'"

"Those whom God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted,
"but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the
pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she
resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man
than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and
when you're more miserable with him than you think you ever could be
without him, it's time to quit."

[Sidenote: Envious Women]

"And," suggested Madame, "in which class do you belong?"

"Both, I think--that is, I'm miserable enough to belong to both. I'm
unhappy when he's with me and wretched when he isn't. As he mostly
isn't, I'm more wretched than unhappy. In the small circle in which I
move, I'm considered a very fortunate woman.

"Women who are compelled to be mendicants and who do not know that I
have a private income, envy me my gowns and ha