of your
joint happiness, an hour or so ago."

The man who is telling the story has a proverbial great advantage; but
I hope the reader knows enough of me by this to believe that I am far
from meanly availing myself of it in this narrative. I am well and
gratefully aware that in this interview with Orlando my advantages were
many and fortunate. For example, had he been bigger and older, or had
he not been a gentleman, my task had been considerably more arduous,
not to say dangerous.

But, as Rosalind had said, he was really quite a boy, and I confess I
was a little ashamed for him, and a little piqued, that he showed so
little fight. The unexpectedness of my attack had, I realised, given
me the whip-hand. So I judged, at all events, from the fact that he
forbore to bluster, and sat quite still, with his head in his hands,
saying never a word for what seemed several minutes. Then presently he
said very quietly,--

"I love my wife all the same."

"Of course you do," I answered, eagerly welcoming the significant
announcement; "and if you'll allow me to say so, I think I understand
more about the whole situation than either of you, bachelor though
unfortunately I am. As a famous friend of mine is fond of saying,
lookers-on see most of the game."

Then I rapidly told him the history of my meeting with his wife, and
depicted, in harrowing pigments of phrase, the distress of her mind.

"I love my wife all the same," he repeated, as I finished; "and," he
added, "I love Sylvia too."

"But not quite in the same way?" I suggested.

"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said.

"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man worth
his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little woman like
that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even
self-sacrifice,--these may be parts of love; but they are merely the
crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel for your
wife, and such as I know she feels for you."

"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't fallen in
love with you."

"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm afraid I
should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this moment. If a
woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her love, it would take
more than a husband to rob me of it, I can tell you."

"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never been false
to her, in my heart; but--"

"I know all about it," I said; "