and raced into incoherence.

A point of view which added false premises, as well as his attitude to
those two little words, was the consciousness that many would consider
that he had not treated his wife as a husband should do. This possibility
had never occurred to him before, so that it came with disproportionate
emphasis.

As a young man he had been too absorbed in his profession to be a lady's
man; and of love he had reckoned little until he had met the Lucille
Charltrain with whom half the world was in love. And she doubtless, like
many a spoiled beauty, was a little piqued that the professor did not join
the throng of her courtiers. In Birnier's mind there had ever been
associated with love the fear that the woman would demand too much, that
no woman could understand that a man's profession must of necessity come
before all things. Lucille was the first woman whom he had met who really
seemed to understand this point of view, as she, too, was devoted to her
art. This had grown to be the biggest bond and attraction between them.
Most men wished to make of love a nuisance, as Lucille once put it. So the
good-looking professor had won the beauty. They were married on the mutual
understanding that each should pursue their respective professions.
Shortly afterwards Birnier was offered a special mission to go to Africa
for the purpose of studying the customs and superstitions of the natives.
Lucille had consented, forbidden, relented, and laughed.

So Lucille sang from musical height to height and her husband sped from
depth to depth in the seas of human fatuity. Whenever he took a furlough
he went, of course, straight to her, wheresoever she was, in Berlin, New
York, or Paris. To Birnier the situation was ideal. He had never dreamed
of any other woman. Indeed the tracts of his mind were so filled with
statistics of anthropology and Lucille that there was little or no room
for any one else. The delight and satisfaction in Birnier's mind were so
sincere that he never had dreamed of questioning whether Lucille's point
of view had remained the same. But now?

That "a toi" stung and baited him into the unprecedented realisation that
after all women had been known to change their opinions. Perhaps pride had
prevented her from ever openly demanding other ways. Lucille was young and
beautiful, courted and flattered on every hand. Perhaps he had been wrong
to leave her for years at a stretch. Of her loyalty he had had no dou