delity to her, had married the next comer out of pique. No
sooner did he have a chance of exchanging speech with her than she
confessed that she hated her husband.

"Now," he reflected, "when a woman takes a man sufficiently into her
confidence to admit that she hates her husband, that admission is
tantamount to an avowal of love for him. Such admission she has made to
me. Nothing conceivable could have been more explicit than her words."
And at the memory of them he nodded sagaciously to himself. "No other
girl," he continued, "no other in all the world, is as desirable as she.
St. Denis would have hypothecated his aureole to possess her. As I sat
with her to-night I felt mediaeval from ears to heel. If our age were a
century or two younger I would have carried her off to a crenelated
castle, let down the draw-bridge, and defied the law. But my apartment
in the Cumberland is hardly a donjon; a hansom is not a vehicle suited
to an elopement; Lochinvar is out of fashion; and besides, she would not
have gone. No, she would not have gone; so the other objections are
immaterial. But then, there are girls who will not go at the asking, but
who will come without instigation. And Eden, I take it, is one of them.
It was six months before she would so much as let me touch the tips of
her fingers; she was afraid of a kiss as of a bee; and at the very
moment when I had given her up she threw herself in my arms: it is true,
she never repeated the performance, which was a pity; though had it not
been for that little affair of mine, we should in all probability be man
and wife to-night. After all, it is for the best, I suppose." And again
he nodded sagaciously.

"Yes," he repeated, "it is for the best. Someone--Shakspere, Martin
Luther, Tupper, or Chauncey Depew--said that there were some good
marriages, but none that were delicious; and I daresay that whoever said
it was right. Yes, certainly it is for the best. It may be sweet and
decorous, as I used to write in my copy-book, to die for one's native
land; but I will be shot if it is sweet and decorous to marry for it.
And practically that is what it amounts to. Men marry for the sake of
others, rarely for their own, and as for women, whatever their reasons
may be, _plaudite sed cavite, cives_! Eden, I am positive, married out
of pique. It is nonsense to think that she could have any large
affection for a man twice her age; and now that she is not only tired of
him, but hates him t