ened, endures beyond life and death, and sometimes beyond betrayal.
But this is not to be won by a jealous man, for jealousy is the
mother-in-law of selfishness, and a woman never permits a man to rival
her in her own particular field.

[Sidenote: Another Danger]

If a man safely passes the test of probation, there is yet another
danger which lies between him and the realisation of his ambition. This
is the tendency of women to conduct excavations into a man's previous
affairs.

He needs the wisdom of the serpent at this juncture, for under the
smiling sweetness a dagger is often concealed. If the point is allowed
to show during an engagement, the whole blade will frequently flash
during marriage.

"Yes, dearest," a man will say, tenderly, "I have loved before, but that
was long ago--long before I met you. She was beautiful, tall, dark,
majestic, with a regal nature like herself--Good Heavens, how I loved
her!"

This is apt to continue for some little time, if a man gets thoroughly
interested in his subject and thinks he is talking rather well, before
he discovers that his petite blonde divinity is either a frozen statue,
or a veritable Niobe as to tears. And not one man in three hundred and
nineteen ever suspects what he has done!

[Sidenote: The Thought of Defection]

A woman is more jealous of the girls a man has loved, whom she has never
seen, than of any number of attractive rivals. In the blind adoration
which he yields her, she takes no thought of immediate defection, for
her smile always makes him happy--her voice never loses its mystic power
over his senses.

On the contrary, a man never stoops to be jealous of the men who have
pleaded in vain for what he has won, nor even of possible fiances whom
later discretion has discarded. He is sure of her at the present moment
and his doubt centres itself comfortably upon the future, which is
always shadowy and unreal to a man, because he is less imaginative than
woman.

And yet--there is no more dangerous companion for a woman than the man
who has loved her. It is easier to waken a woman's old love than to
teach her a new affection. Strangely enough, the woman a man has once
loved and then forgotten is powerless in the after years. A man's dead
friendship may dream of resurrection, but never his dead love.

Jealousy and distrust have never yet won a doubting heart. Bitterness
never accomplishes miracles which sweetness fails to do. Too often men
and women