If Alexander had been a woman, he would not have sighed for more worlds to conquer—­woman asks but one.  If his world had been a clever woman he would have had no time for alien planets, because a man will never lose his interest in a woman while his conquest is incomplete.

The woman who is most tenderly loved and whose husband is still her lover, carefully conceals from him the fact that she is fully won.  There is always something he has yet to gain.

[Sidenote:  A Carmen at Heart]

After ten years of marriage, if the old relation remains the same, it is because she is a Carmen at heart.  She is alluring, tempting, cajoling and scorning in the same breath; at once tender and commanding, inspiring both love and fear, baffling and eluding even while she is leading him on.

She gives him veiled hints of her real personality, but he never penetrates her mask.  Could he see for an instant into the secret depths of her soul, he would understand that her concealment and her coquetry, her mystery and her charm, are nothing but her love, playing a desperate game against Time and man’s nature, for the dear stake of his own.

Dumas draws a fine distinction when he says:  “A man may have two passions but never two loves:  whoever has loved twice has never loved at all.”  If this is true, the dividing line is so exceedingly fine that it is beyond woman’s understanding, and it may be surmised that even man does not fully realise it until he is old and grey.

[Sidenote:  The Cords of Memory]

Yet somewhere, in every man’s heart, is hidden a woman’s face.  To that inner chamber no other image ever finds its way.  The cords of memory which hold it are strong as steel and as tender as the heart-fibre of which they are made.

There is no time in his life when those eyes would not thrill him and those lips make him tremble—­no hour when the sound of that voice would not summon him like a trumpet-call.

No loyalty or allegiance is powerful enough to smother it within his own heart, in spite of the conditions to which he may outwardly conform.  Other passions may temporarily hide it even from his own sight, yet in reality it is supreme, from the day of its birth to the door of his grave.

He may be happily married, as the world counts happiness, and She may be dead—­but never forgotten.  No real love or hate is wrought upon by Lethe.  The thousand dreams of her will send his blood in passionate flow and the thousand memories of her whiten his face with pain.  Friendship is intermittent and passion forgets, but man’s single love is eternal.

Because woman’s love is responsive, it never dies.  Her love of love is everlasting.  Some threads in the fabric she has woven are like shining silver; others are sombre, broken, and stained with tears.  When a man has once taught a woman to believe his love is true, she is already, though unconsciously, won.