ass the time, and he
is longing for his _petits theatres_. Is it my fault? I torment myself
with a thousand self-accusations. Is it possible I can have been
tiresome, dull, over-exacting? Is it possible he can be disappointed in
me?

* * * * *

_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, St. Petersburg, to the Princess di
San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset._

No, it isn't your fault, you dear little donkey: it is only the natural
sequence of things. Men are always like that when the woman loves them:
when she don't, they behave much better. My dear, this is just what is
so annoying about love: the man's is always going slower and slower
towards a dead stop, as the woman's is "coaling" and getting steam up. I
borrow papa's admirably accurate metaphor: nothing can be truer. It is a
great pity, but I suppose the fault is Nature's. _Entre nous_, I don't
think Nature ever contemplated marriage, any more than she did
crinolettes, pearl powder, or the electric light. There is no doubt that
Nature intended to adjust the thing on the butterfly and buttercup
system,--on the _je reste, tu t'en vas_ principle. And nothing would be
easier or nicer, only there are children and property. So the butterfly
has to be pinned down by the buttercup. That is why the Communists and
Anarchists always abolish Property and Marriage together. The one is
evolved out of the other, just as the dear scientists say the horse was
evolved out of a bird, which I never can see makes the matter any easier
of comprehension; but, still--what was I saying? Oh, I meant to say
this: you are only lamenting, as a special defalcation and disloyalty in
San Zenone, what is merely his unconscious and involuntary and perfectly
natural alteration from a lover into a husband. The butterfly is
beginning to feel the pin which has been run through him to stick him
down. It is not your fault, my sweet little girl; it is the fault, if at
all, of the world, which has decreed that the butterfly, to flirt
legitimately with the buttercup, must suffer the corking-pin. Now, take
my advice: the pin is in, don't worry if he writhe on it a little bit!
It is only what the beloved scientists again call automatic action. And
do try and beat into your little head the fact that a man may love you
very dearly, and yet yawn a little for the _petits theatres_ in the
silent recesses of his manly breast. Of course I know this sort of rough
awakening from delightful dreams is