"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said.
"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man worth his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little woman like that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even self-sacrifice,—these may be parts of love; but they are merely the crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel for your wife, and such as I know she feels for you."
"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't fallen in love with you."
"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm afraid I should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this moment. If a woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her love, it would take more than a husband to rob me of it, I can tell you."
"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never been false to her, in my heart; but—"
"I know all about it," I said; "may I tell you how it all was,—diagnose the situation?"
"Do," he replied; "it is a relief to hear you talk."
"Well," I said, "may I ask one rather intimate question? Did you ever before you were married sow what are known as wild oats?"
"Never," he answered indignantly, flashing for a moment.
"Well, you should have done," I said; "that's just the whole trouble. Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts of life is to sow them at the right time,—the younger the better. Think candidly before you answer me."