that every woman looked her best in bed; and as she
lay now, following the lines of her charming figure
beneath the satin coverlet, she found herself wonder-
ing, not without resentment, why the possession of a
beauty so conspicuous should afford her only a slight
and temporary satisfaction. Last week a woman
whom she knew had had her nose broken in an auto-
mobile accident, and as she remembered this it
seemed to her that the mere fact of her undisfigured
features was sufficient to be the cause of joyful
gratitude. But this, she knew, was not so, for her
face was perfectly unharmed; and yet she felt that
she could hardly have been more miserable, even with
a broken nose.

Here she paused for an instant in order to establish
herself securely in her argument, for, though she
could by no stretch of the imagination regard her
mind as of a meditative cast, there are hours when
even to the most flippant experience wears the bor-
rowed mantle of philosophy. Abstract theories of
conduct diverted her but little; what she wanted was
some practical explanation of the mental weariness she
felt. What she wanted, she repeated, as if to drive
in the matter with a final blow, was to be as happy
in the actual condition as she had told herself that
she might be when as yet the actual was only the
ideal. Why, for instance, when she had been wretched
with but one man on the box, should the addition
of a second livery fail to produce in her the content-
ment of which she had often dreamed while she
disconsolately regarded a single pair of shoulders?
That happiness did not masquerade in livery she had
learned since she had triumphantly married the

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