[Sidenote:  Home Comforts]

Take careful note of the bric-a-brac upon his library table.  See the few square inches of blotting paper on a cylinder which he can roll over his letter—­the three stamps stuck together more closely than brothers, generously set aside for his use.  Does he find comfort here?  Not very much of it.

See the dainty dinner which is set before the hungry man.  A cup of rarest china holds four ounces of clear broth.  A stick of bread or two crackers are allotted to him.  Then he may have two croquettes, or one small chop, when his soul is athirst for rare roast beef and steak an inch thick.  Then a nice salad, made of three lettuce leaves and a suspicion of oil, another cracker and a cubic inch of cheese, an ounce of coffee in a miniature cup, and behold, the man is fed!

Why should he go to his club, call loudly for flesh-pots, sink into a chair he is not afraid of breaking, and forget his trouble in the evening paper, while his wife is at home, alone, or having a Roman holiday as a chaperone?

It is a simple thing to acquire a lover, but it is a fine art to keep him.  Clubs were originally intended for the homeless, as distinguished from the unmarried.  The rare woman who rests and soothes a man when he is tired has no rival in the club.  Misunderstanding, sorrowful, yearning for what she has lost, woman contemplates the wreck of her girlish dream.

[Sidenote:  The Heart of a Woman]

There are three things man is destined never to solve—­perpetual motion, the square of the circle, and the heart of a woman.  Yet he may go a little way into the labyrinth with the thread of love, which his Ariadne will gladly give him at the door.

The dim chambers are fragrant with precious things, for through the winding passages Memory has strewn rue and lavender, love and longing; sweet spikenard and instinctive belief.  Some day, when the heart aches, she will brew content from these.

There are barriers which he may not pass, secret treasures that he may not see, dreams that he may not guess.  There are dark corners where there has been torture, of which he will never know.  There are shadows and ghostly shapes which Penelope has hidden with the fairest fabrics of her loom.  There are doors, tightly locked, which he has no key to open; rooms which have contained costly vessels, empty and deep with dust.

There is no other step than his, for he walks there alone; sometimes to the music of dead days and sometimes to the laughter of a little child.  The petals of crushed roses rustle at his feet—­his roses—­in the inmost places of her heart.  And beyond, of spotless marble, with the infinite calm of mountains and perpetual snow, is something which he seldom comprehends—­her love of her own whiteness.

It is a wondrous thing.  For it is so small he could hold it in the hollow of his hand, yet it is great enough to shelter him forever.  All the world may not break it if his love is steadfast and unchanging, and loving him, it becomes deep enough to love and pity all the world.