"What are you going to do about it?"
"Do? Nothing," he said with a short laugh. "There's nothing to do. I'm a good deal of a fool, but I know that putting trouble in a woman's way never made her quit going after what she'd set her mind on. If I licked Cort Bent she'd make me out a brute; if I shot him, she'd make him out a martyr. Any way, I'm a loser. I'm going my own way and she——" He got up and strode the length of the room and back, and then spoke constrainedly: "I'm not going to speak of this matter to you or to any one else."
He dropped into his chair beside her again and glared at the window curtain. Mrs. Cheyne leaned one elbow on the arm of her chair which was nearest him and sighed deeply.
"Why is it that we always marry the wrong people? If life wasn't so much of a joke, I'd be tempted to cry over the fallibility of human nature. The love of one's teens is the only love that is undiluted with other motives—the only love that's really what love was meant to be. It's perfectly heavenly, but of course it's entirely unpractical. Marrying one's first love is iconoclasm—it's a sacrilege—a profanation—and ought to be prohibited by law. First love was meant for memory only—to sweeten other memories later on—but it was never meant for domestication. Rose petals amid cabbage leaves! Incense amid the smells of an apartment kitchen!"
She sank back in her chair again and mused dreamily, her eyes on the open fire.
"It's a pretty madness," she sighed. "Romance thrives on unrealities. What has it in common with the butcher? You know"—she paused and gave a quick little laugh—"you know, Cheyne and I fell in love at first sight. He was an adorable boy and he made love like an angel. He had a lot of money, too—almost as much as I had—but he didn't let that spoil him—not then. He used to work quite hard before we were married, and was really a useful citizen.
"Matrimony ruined him. It does some men. He got to be so comfortable and contented in his new condition that he forgot that there was anything else in the world but comfort and content—even me. He began to get fat and bald. Don't you hate bald-headed men with beards? He was so sleek, shiny, and respectable that he got on my nerves. He didn't want to go anywhere but to symphony concerts and the opera. Sometimes he played quite dolefully on the 'cello—even insisted on doing so when we had people in to dinner. It was really very inconsiderate of him when every one wanted to be jolly. He began making a collection of 'cellos, too, which stood around the walls of the music room in black cases like coffins. Imagine a taste like that! The thing I had once mistaken for poetry, for sentiment, had degenerated into a kind of flabby sentimentality which extended to all of the commonplaces of existence. I found that it wasn't really me that he loved at all. It was love that he loved. I had made a similar mistake. We discovered it quite casually one evening after dinner."
She broke off with a sigh. "What's the use? I suppose you'll think I'm selfish—talking of myself. Mine is an old story. Time has mellowed it agreeably. Yours is newer——"
"I'm very sorry for you. But you know that I'm sorry. I've told you so before. I think I understand you better now."
"And I you," and then softly, "Mrs. Wray was your first love?"