e hard time he had getting out
of it."

"And the headache," added the widow.

"And the 'tired feeling'."

"And the other woman," suggested the widow contemptuously.

"Yes," agreed the bachelor, "the other woman, of course. But," he added
thoughtfully, "if a woman could only take the hint in time----"

"What time?" asked the widow. "When a man begins to be late for his
engagements?"

"Yes; or to forget them altogether."

"And to make excuses and enlarge on his rush of business."

"And to seem abstracted during the conversation."

"And to stop noticing her jokes or her frocks or the way she does her
hair."

"And to stay away from places where he could be sure to meet her."

"But," protested the widow, "they always make such plausible excuses."

"Nothing," said the bachelor confidently, "will keep a man away from a
woman except a lack of interest in her----"

"Or an interest in another woman," added the widow promptly. "But," she
concluded tentatively, "there ought to be a cure for it."

"For what? The other woman?"

"That tired feeling, Mr. Travers."

"There isn't any cure," replied the bachelor promptly, "but there's a
good preventive. When you were a very little girl," he continued
patronizingly, "and liked jam----"

"I like it now!" declared the widow.

"How did your mother manage to preserve your interest in it?"

"She took the jam away, Mr. Travers, and put it on the top shelf
always--just before I had had enough."

"Well, that's the way to preserve a man's interest in a woman," declared
the bachelor. "Deal yourself out to him in homeopathic doses. Put
yourself on the top shelf, where it is hard for him to get at you. Feed
him sugar out of a teaspoon; don't pass him the whole sugar bowl. Then
he will be always begging for more. One only wants more of anything that
one can't get enough of, you know. Now, if a woman would use her
judgment----"

"As if a woman in love had any judgment!" mocked the widow.

"That's it!" sighed the bachelor, "She never has. She just lays the
whole feast before the man, flings all her charms at his head at once,
surfeits him with the champagne of her wit and lets him eat all the
sugar off his cake right away. The love affair springs up like a
mushroom and--"

"Oh, well," interrupted the widow impatiently, "I like mushroom love
affairs. I like a man who can fling himself headlong into an affair
and----"

"Of course you do!" sighed the bachelor, "every woman do