Elise, we all know, wedded for the money and position Mr. Volney gave, in return for her young beauty.
Clarence and you were ideal lovers, seeing nothing in the world outside of your own selves.
Yet Elise is quite contented, and Mr. Volney uses what little brain he has left to exult over his possession of such a beautiful young wife.
Elise upholds his dignity and flatters him into a belief that he is a great philanthropist and a social power, and in this way she has the handling of his millions, which is her idea of happiness. She travels, entertains, and poses for photographs and paintings in imported gowns, and there is no rumour of discontent or divorce.
Meanwhile, Clarence, who was so opposed to her marriage because it was loveless, is making a mess of his own love-match, through his jealousy.
You, who knew him to be insanely jealous as a lover, and who seemed to be flattered with what you thought a proof of his devotion, appeal to me now to know what to do with the husband who is destroying your love and your happiness! Surely, if Elise knew of this she might well say, "He laughs best who laughs last."
I know that you were absorbed in Clarence for the first year of your married life, and that you gave no least cause for any jealousy, and I know, as you say, that even then he was often morbid and unhappy over nothing at all.
He was jealous even of girl friends and relatives, and if you attended a matinée with one of them, he sulked the whole evening.
This was little more than he did as a lover, and you should have begun in those days to reason him out of such moods.
You imagined then it was his mad love for you which caused his unreasonable jealousy.