infinitely gentle touch recall me to content. That stroking caress of
his was a thing indescribable; one before which the black shadows left
by the hours of night seemed literally to dissolve and vanish.

And now the long expected, long dreaded has begun to happen. He, too, is
turning against me, as so many others of his fellows have done in the
past. Who knows the reason? What continued roughness on my part has at
last worn out even him? But for some days now there has been no
misreading the fatal symptoms--increasing irritability on the one side,
harshness turning to blunt indifference on the other. And this morning
came the unforgivable offence, the cut direct.

That settles it; to-morrow, with a still smarting regret, I unwrap a new
razor-blade.

* * * * *

THE WHOLE HOG.

["Victorian love-making was at best a sloppy business ... modern
maidens have little use for half measures.... Primitive ideas
are beginning to assert themselves."--_Daily Paper._]

Betty, when you were in your teens
And shielded from sensation,
Despite a lack of ways and means
In various appropriate scenes
I sighed my adoration.
You did not smile upon my suit;
Pallid I grew and pensive;