"Unlucky in love, lucky at cards!"
Up to this time I considered my wife thoughtless and fond of admiration as all women are—but not worse than that. The only time she failed to exercise her diplomacy and splendid tact was during our sojourn at this French watering place. Perhaps my constant presence irritated her. There is nothing that so gets on one's nerves as the presence of someone who is a bore. I don't blame any woman for wanting to jump the traces under these conditions. The only thing I hold against her is that she never told me. It would have been very easy and I would willingly have released her from her misery, but to inform people by inference—to make a boob of me—was unkind, unjust and cruel.
It never occurred to me that I was boring her until I came across a letter which fell into my hands quite by accident. My servant mistook it for a note addressed to me and placed it with several others he had previously opened for my perusal. It furnished one of my reasons for divorcing the most beautiful woman in the world. Here it is:—
Wednesday
Dear Lord ——
You see I don't quite dare say "——" yet but you wait till we take our next walk together and I shall practice it every minute. You nice thing! I am delighted with the photograph—it stands before me as I write giving the modest room an air of fashion and I shall always keep it among my treasures.
Aren't you lucky to be at —— with that blessed —— and as many attractive people; this place would bore you to death I think—the gaiety seems such hollow, tinsel-ly sort; if it were not for golf I should find it intolerable. Unless one is filled with sporting blood and goes in for gambling at the races, one has a pretty dull time but then, England is the only place for me and my dolly is always stuffed with sawdust when I am away from it. Perhaps I shall have the good luck to see you in London. I get back Sept. 1st but only as a bird of passage; probably we can't stay there even one night for I must go at once to the country to see my sister and stay with Lady —— from Sat. to Monday and sail the 7th which means Tuesday would be our only day in town I suppose. Alas! My love to you and don't forget me. I am filled with the most affectionate thoughts of you all at ——
Maxine
Any man who could live with a woman who wrote such a letter does not deserve the name of man. I made up my mind to quit then and there and told her so. I gave her my reason, kept the letter and took the train for London and the boat for America—thirty thousand loser!