makes up her mind to marry him?"

The widow dug the sand spitefully with the point of her violet sunshade.

"I didn't refer to the chance of escape," she replied, icily. "I was
speaking of the chance of a choice."

"That's it!" cried the bachelor. "The selection is so great--the choice
is so varied! Don't you know how it is when you have too many dress
patterns or hats or rings to choose from? You find it difficult to
settle on any one--so difficult, in fact, that you decide not to choose
at all, but to keep them all dangling----"

"Or else just shut your eyes," interrupted the widow, "and put out your
hand and grab something."

[Illustration: "CHANCE! what chance has a man got?" _Page 48_]

"Of course, you shut your eyes!" acquiesced the bachelor. "Whoever
went into matrimony with his eyes open?"

"A woman does," declared the widow tentatively. "She knows exactly what
she wants, and if it is possible, she gets it. It is only after she has
tried and failed many times that she puts her hand into the matrimonial
grab-bag, and accepts anything she happens to pull out. But a man never
employs any reason at all in picking out a wife----"

"Naturally!" scoffed the bachelor. "By that time, he's lost his reason!"

The widow rested her elbow on the handle of her sunshade, put her chin
in her hand and smiled out at the sea.

"Yes," she said, "he has. He has reached the marrying mood."

"The--what?"

"The marrying mood. A man never decides to marry a girl just simply
because he loves her, or because she is suitable, or because he ought to
marry her, or because she is irresistible or fascinating or in love with
him. He never marries at all until he gets the marrying mood, the
matrimonial fever--and then he marries the first girl who comes along
and wants him, young or old, pretty or ugly, good or bad. And that
explains why a lot of men are tied up to women that you cannot possibly
see any reason for having been married at all, much less married to
those particular men."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "I'm glad I've got past the
age----"

"But you haven't!" declared the widow emphatically. "The marrying fever
is, like the measles or the appendicitis, liable to catch you at any age
or stage, and you never know when or why or how you got it. Sometimes a
man takes it when he is very young and rushes into a fool marriage with
a woman twice his age, and sometimes he goes all his life up to sixty
without catchin