“A sort of antenuptial divorce law, eh?” suggested Upton.  “That’s not a bad idea; you ought to write to the papers and suggest it—­using your maiden name, of course, not mine.”

“If you would only find out from Walter what he’s mad at, and tell him he’s an idiot and a heartless thing, maybe we could smooth it out, because I know that ’way down in her soul Molly loves him.”

“Very well, I’ll do it,” said Upton, good-naturedly; “but mind you it’s only to oblige you, and if Bliss throws me out of the club window for meddling in his affairs, it will be your fault.”

The doctor did not quite throw Upton out of the window that afternoon when the subject came up, but he did the next thing to it.  He turned upon him, and with much gravity remarked:  “Upton, I’ll talk politics, finance, medicine, surgery, literature, or neck-ties with you, but under no circumstances will I talk about woman with anybody.  I prefer a topic concerning which it is possible occasionally to make an intelligent surmise at least.  Woman is as comprehensible to a finite mind as chaos.  Who’s your tailor?”

“You ought to have seen us when he said that,” observed Upton to his wife, as he told her about the interview at dinner that evening.  “He was as solemn as an Alp, and apparently as immovable as the Sphinx; and as for me, I simply withered on my stalk and crumbled away into dust.  Wherefore, my love, I am through; and hereafter if you are going to make matches for my friends and need outside help, get a hired man to help you.  I’m did.  If I were you I’d let ’em go their own way, and if their lives are spoiled, why, your conscience is clear either way.”

But Mrs. Upton had no sympathy with any such view as that.  She had been so near to victory that she was not going to surrender now without one more charge.  She tried a little sounding of Bliss herself, and finally asked him point-blank if he would take dinner with herself and Upton and Molly and make it up, and he declined absolutely; and it was just as well, for when Molly heard of it she asserted that she had no doubt it would have been a pleasant dinner, but that nothing could have induced her to go.  She never wished to see Dr. Bliss again—­not even professionally.  Mrs. Upton was gradually becoming utterly discouraged.  The only hopeful feature of the situation was that there were no “alternates” involved.  Bliss was done forever with woman; Miss Meeker had never cared for any man but Walter.  Time passed, and the lovers were adamant in their determination never to see each other again.  Repeated efforts to bring them together failed, until Mrs. Upton was in despair.  It is always darkest, however, just before dawn, and it finally happened that just as hopelessness was beginning to take hold of Mrs. Upton’s heart her great device came to her.

IV

THE DEVICE

  “Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
  And all went merry as a marriage bell.”
  —­Childe Harold.