I suppose such a look might come to one in prison, who, in the midst of some pleasant fancy, has forgotten his surroundings, and is awakened to reason and suddenly to a perception again of the grim walls about him, and of his helplessness and, maybe, hopelessness.  Harlson left the mantel against which he bad been leaning, and walked about the room for a moment or two before speaking.

“It’s true,” he said, “I am certainly a married man.  The law allows it, and the court awards it, as things are in this society, bound by the tapes of Justice Shallow and the rest.  I entered into a contract which was a mistake on the part of two people.  They discovered their error, and rectified it as far as they could.  Had they been two men or two women who had gone into ordinary business together, and subsequently discovered they were not fitted for a partnership, the law would have assisted cheerfully in their absolute separation.  But with this, the gravest of all contracts, the one most affecting human welfare, no such kindness of the statutes may exist.  Some of the churches say the contract is a sacrament, though the shepherd kings, whose story is our Bible, had no such thought, nor was it taught by the lowly Nazarene; but the law supports the legend, within certain limits.  What are we going to do about it?”

I told him that I didn’t know, and there were several thousand people—­good people—­in the city facing the same conundrum.

I called attention to the fact that the conventional band was a strong one at this time, and could not be burst without a penalty, even by the shrewdest.  The dwarfs were so many that, united, they were stronger than any Gulliver.  And I added that, in my opinion, as a mere layman, he was very well off; that he had been at least relieved of the great, continued trouble which follows a mismating, and that it would be time enough for him to chafe at the light chain still restraining him, when he was sure he wanted to replace it by another.

“It’s not your fashion,” I said, “to fret over the morrow, and it is my personal and profound conviction that you have no more real idea of marrying again than you have of volunteering in the service of the Akhoond of Swat—­if there be an Akhoond of Swat at present.  You’re only wandering mentally to-night, my boy, dreaming, because this wisp of a young woman of whom you have been telling has turned your brain for the time.  You’ll be wiser in the morning.”

All this I said with much lofty arrogance, and a great assumption of knowing all, and of being a competent adviser of a friend in trouble, but, at heart, I knew that, in Harlson’s place, I should not have shown any particular degree of self-control.  I have never felt the thing, but it must be grinding to occupy a position like that of this man I was addressing.  The serving out of a society sentence must be a test of grit.

We dropped the discussion of the problem, and Harlson referred to it again but incidentally.