hought," she continued, "that it was just the other way about; that
it was presence and not absence that made the heart of man grow fonder,
and that if a man's best girl, so to say, was away, he was able to make
himself very comfortable with his second-best!"

"In some cases, of course, it's true," I answered, unmoved; "but with a
love like yours and Orlando's, it's quite different."

"Oh, do you really mean it?"

"Certainly I do; and your mistake has been in supposing that an
experiment which no few every-day married couples would be only too
glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you. Laws and
systems are meant for the unhappy and the untractable, not for people
like you, for whom Love makes its own laws."

"Yes, that is what we used to say; and indeed, we thought that this was
one of love's laws,--this experiment, as you call it."

"But it was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial
oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true
lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching
them on the rack of absence--" There my period broke down, so I began
another less ambitiously planned.

"A whole month in a year! Think what that would mean in a lifetime.
How long do you expect to live and love together? Say another fifty
years at the most. Well, fifty ones are fifty. Fifty months
equal--four twelves are forty-eight and two over--four years and two
months. Yes, out of the short life God allows even for the longest
love you would voluntarily throw away four years and two months!"

This impressive calculation had a great effect on poor Rosalind; and it
is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom may have less
weight with the reader, as for the moment Rosalind was my one concern.

"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said Rosalind
presently, with charming illogicality.

"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder (ahem!), does
well not to live too much on trust."

"But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind.

"Theoretically, yes; practically, no. On the contrary, it means
exactly the opposite. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away!
No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the less one lives
up to it. If not, what do these tears mean?"

"Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say that. I
trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't that; it's simply that I c