“It is only during the last two or three years that Edna has shown this tendency,” you say.  “Until then she seemed to me the most sensible and liberal-minded of women, always admiring the people I liked, and even going out of her way to be courteous and cordial to a woman I praised.  Of late she has seemed so different, and has often been sarcastic, or sulky, or hysterical, when I showed the common gallantries of a man fond of the society of ladies.”

You think it is her inherited tendency cropping out, and that she is unconscious of it herself.

Well now permit me, my dear Mr. Gordon, to be very frank with you.

I met your wife only once before she married you.

She was a merry-hearted, healthy girl, with superb colour, and the figure of a young Venus.  She was a belle, and much admired by many worth-while men.

During her honeymoon, she wrote me a most charming letter speaking of her happiness, and of her desire to make you an ideal wife.

You and Edna were my guests for a few days when your first child was a year old.  She seemed more beautiful than ever, with an added spiritual charm, and you were the soul of devotion.

You are the type of man who pays a compliment as naturally as he breathes, and whose vision is a sensitive plate which retains an impression of every feminine grace.  This impression is developed in the memory-room afterward, and framed in your conversation.

The ordinary mind calls such a man a flirt, or, in common parlance, “a jollier;” but I know you to be merely appreciative of womankind in general, while your heart is beautifully loyal to its ideal.  You are a clean, wholesome man, who could not descend to intrigue.  You are fine-looking, and you possess a gift in conversing.

Of course women are attracted to you.  Edna was proud of this fact, and seemed to genuinely enjoy your popularity.

That was five years ago.

One year ago I visited your home.  Edna was the mother of three children, born during the first five years of marriage.

She had sacrificed her bloom to her babies, and was pallid and anaemic.  Her form had lost its exquisites curves, and she seemed years older than her age—­older indeed than you, although she is four years your junior.  It is a mere incident to be a father of three children.  It is a lifetime experience to be their mother.  She had developed nerves, and tears came as readily as laughter came of old.

She was devoted to her children, and felt a deep earnestness regarding her responsibility as a mother.  But she was still the intensely loving wife, while you had sunk your role of lover-husband in that of adoring father.

You did not seem to think of Edna’s delicate state of health, or notice her fading beauty.  You regarded her as a faithful nurse for your children, and whenever you spoke of her it was as the mother, not as the sweetheart and wife.