ninety-nine cases in a thousand any doubt that the hand, that spends at
least a pound a day in restaurants and cabs, will succeed in gathering
the muslin flower if he so wills it, and by doing so he will delight
every one. Where, then, is the struggle? where, then, is the triumph?
Therefore, I say that if a young man's heart is not set on children, and
tiresome dinner-parties, the young girl presents to him no possible
ideal. But the woman of thirty presents from the outset all that is
necessary to ensnare the heart of a young man. I see her sitting in her
beautiful drawing-room, all designed by, and all belonging to her. Her
chair is placed beneath an evergreen plant, and the long leaves lean
out as if to touch her neck. The great white and red roses of the
Aubusson carpet are spread enigmatically about her feline feet; a grand
piano leans its melodious mouth to her; and there she sits when her
visitors have left her, playing Beethoven's sonatas in the dreamy
firelight. The spring-tide shows but a bloom of unvarying freshness;
August has languished and loved in the strength of the sun. She is
stately, she is tall. What sins, what disappointments, what aspirations
lie in those grey eyes, mysteriously still, and mysteriously revealed.
These a young man longs to know of, they are his life. He imagines
himself sitting by her, when the others have gone, holding her hand,
calling on her name; sometimes she moves away and plays the moonlight
sonata. Letting her hands droop upon the keys she talks sadly, maybe
affectionately; she speaks of the tedium of life, of its
disenchantments. He knows well what she means, he has suffered as she
has; but could he tell her, could she understand, that in his love
reality would dissolve into a dream, all limitations would open into
boundless infinity.

The husband he rarely sees. Sometimes a latch-key is heard about
half-past six. The man is thick, strong, common, his jaws are heavy,