regard for the young woman who still bore his name but was no longer his
wife. At twenty-four he looked upon himself as a man who had nothing to
live for. He spent most of his time gnashing his teeth because the pretty
little divorcee was receiving the attentions of young gentlemen in his own
set, without the slightest hint of opposition on the part of their
parents, while he was obliged to look on from afar off.

It appears that parents do not object to young women of insufficient
lineage provided the said young women keep at a safe distance from the
marriage altar.

It is interesting to note in this connection, however, that little Mrs.
George Tresslyn was a model of propriety despite her sprightly
explorations of a world that had been strange to her up to the time she
was cast into it by a disgusted mother-in-law, and it is still more
interesting to find that she nourished a sly hope that some day George
would kick over the traces in a very manly fashion and marry her all over
again!

Be that as it may, the bereft and humiliated George favoured his mother
and sister with innumerable half-hours in which they had to contend with
scornful and exceedingly bitter opinions on the iniquity of marriage as it
is practised among the elect. He fairly bawled his disapproval of the sale
of Anne to the decrepit Mr. Thorpe, and there was not a day in the week
that did not contain at least one unhappy hour for the women in his home,
for just so often he held forth on the sanctity of the marriage vows.

He was connected with a down-town brokerage firm and he was as near to
being a failure in the business as an intimate and lifelong friend of the
family would permit him to be and still allow him to remain in the office.