props in the shape of tickets for the matinée, to which you generously
bid her to "take one of the girls." If she loves books, you like to
hear her talk about them, because she does it so well, and because she
knows the ins and outs of your mind so thoroughly that in ten minutes
she can give you the plot, and half an hour's reading aloud of
striking passages will give you so excellent an idea of the style that
you can talk about it to-morrow more intelligently than some bachelors
who have really read it by themselves most conscientiously. That is
because you are clever; because your wife is more clever. You have a
brain, and your wife photographs her personality and her subject upon
it, because she understands you and has studied you, and has a pride
that you shall appear to advantage among her friends and not
degenerate into a mere business machine, as too many men do. I suppose
it never occurred to you to try to do a similar thing for her. You
could, if you wanted to. But it is a good deal of trouble, and you are
generally tired. But what do you suppose would happen if you should
exhibit the same eagerness that she does to keep the flame of love
alive, so that your marriage should not sink to the dead commonplace
level of all the other marriages you know? Suppose, even after you
have caught the car, that you occasionally got off and ran beside it a
while, just for healthful exercise, and to keep yourself from growing
ordinary?

Suppose _you_ occasionally hunted out a new book, and marked it, and
brought it home to read to her, not because you think she wouldn't
have got it without you, but just to show her that you are trying to
pull evenly, and that you wanted to do something extra charming for
her _in her line_, and to prove that you have a conscience about
keeping this precious, evanescent, but carelessly treated love at a
point where it is still a joy. It is a sad thing to get so used to a