[Sidenote: "Tears, Idle Tears"]

Woman's tears mean no more than the sparks from an overcharged dynamo;
they are simply emotional relief. Married men gradually come to realise
it, and this is why a suspicion of tears in his sweetheart's eyes means
infinitely more to a lover than a fit of hysterics does to a husband.

We are wont to speak of woman's tenderness, but there is no tenderness
like that of a man for the woman he loves when she is tired or
troubled, and the man who has learned simply to love a woman at crucial
moments, and to postpone the inevitable idiotic questioning till a more
auspicious time, has in his hands the talisman of domestic felicity.

If by any chance the lachrymal glands were to be dried up, woman's life
would lose a goodly share of its charm. There is nothing to cry on which
compares with a man's shoulder; almost any man will do at a critical
moment; but the clavicle of a lover is by far the most desirable. If the
flood is copious and a collar or an immaculate shirt-front can be
spoiled, the scene acquires new and distinct value. A pillow does very
well, lacking the shoulder, for many of the most attractive women in
fiction habitually cry into pillows--because they have no lover, or
because the brute dislikes tears.

When grief strikes deep, a woman's eyes are dry. Her soul shudders and
there is a hand upon her heart whose icy fingers clutch at the inward
fibre in a very real physical pain. There are no tears for times like
these; the inner depths, bare and quivering, are healed by no such balm
as this.

A sudden blow leaves a woman as cold as a marble statue and absolutely