lando and his Rosalind set their hands and hearts and
lips.

Now, wisdom is all very well till the time comes to apply it; and as
that month of June approached in which they had designed to give their
love a holiday, they had found their courage growing less and less.
Their love didn't want a holiday; and when Orlando had referred to the
matter during the early days of May, Rosalind had burst into tears, and
begged him to reconsider a condition which they had made before they
really knew what wedded love was. But Orlando, though in tears himself
(so Rosalind averred), had a higher sense of their duty to their ideal,
and was able, though in tears, to beg her look beyond the moment, and
realise what a little self-denial now might mean in the years to come.
They hadn't kept any other of their resolutions,--thus Rosalind let it
out!--this must be kept.

And thus it had come about that Orlando had gone off for his month's
holiday with a charming girl, who, with the cynic, will no doubt
account for his stern adherence to duty; and Rosalind had gone off for
hers with a pretty young man whom she'd liked well enough to go to the
theatre and to supper with,--a young man who was indeed a dear friend,
and a vivacious, sympathetic companion, but whom, as a substitute for
Orlando, she immediately began to hate. Such is the female heart!

The upshot of the experiment, so far as she was concerned, was that she
had quarrelled with her companion, and had gone off in search of her
husband, on which search she was embarked at the moment of my
encountering her. The tears, therefore,--that is, the first lot of
tears by the roadside,--had not been all on account of the injured
bicycle, you see.

Now the question was, How had Orlando been getting on? I had an
intuition that in his case the experiment had proved more enjoyable,
but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making such a suggestion.
On the contrary, I expressed my firm conviction that Orlando was
probably even more miserable than she was.

"Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly, her poor miserable face
growing bright a moment with hope and gratitude.

"Undoubtedly," I answered sententiously. "To put the case on the most
general principles, apart from Orlando's great love for you, it is an
eternal truth of masculine sentiment that man always longs for the
absent woman."

"Are you quite sure?" asked Rosalind, with an unconvinced half-smile.

"Absolutely."

"I t