"I don't mean anything personal, of course, but apply the situation to
yourself."

Halidome took out a toothpick, used it brusquely, and responded:

"I shouldn't stand any humbug--take her travelling; shake her mind up.
She'd soon come round."

"But suppose she really loathed you?"

Halidome cleared his throat; the idea was so obviously indecent. How
could anybody loathe him? With great composure, however, regarding
Shelton as if he were a forward but amusing child, he answered:

"There are a great many things to be taken into consideration."

"It appears to me," said Shelton, "to be a question of common pride. How
can you, ask anything of a woman who doesn't want to give it."

His friend's voice became judicial.

"A man ought not to suffer," he said, poring over his whisky, "because a
woman gets hysteria. You have to think of Society, your children, house,
money arrangements, a thousand things. It's all very well to talk. How
do you like this whisky?"

"The part of the good citizen, in fact," said Shelton,
"self-preservation!"

"Common-sense," returned his friend; "I believe in justice before