sexes; there is both the individual equation and the sex equation.” “Should you not be afraid, Professor, to take away this illusion? Should we not be striking a further blow at marriage if we withheld from those about to marry the hope, false though it be, that something beyond themselves is going to bestow its benediction upon marriage?” [Illustration] [Illustration] “I cannot agree,” protested the Professor, “that any kind of ignorance can be a good thing in the end. Moreover, I think this false hope, after doing little good, does a vast deal of harm. The trouble comes when the two who are married, and who have looked for this magic, find it not, find that they still are two; and when they are three, the momentous equation must be carried forward.” I suggested that probably there was no sex in the illusion, that the man and the woman were alike sentimental in the matter. “Probably,” admitted the Professor; “but as woman suffers the more by it we are likely at times to think that her illusions must have been deeper. I think the American girl has fewer illusions than some others, and I think that somehow she is going to work out a higher plan than the world has had the luck to exploit hitherto.” “Let us hope so,” I said fervently. The Professor turned quickly toward me. “Not,” she said, “that I think that marriage has been, relatively, unsuccessful with us. The American marriage has come nearer, in my opinion, to being a happy marriage than any yet invented. The very development of the divorce system, monstrous as that is, shows that nowadays and hereabouts people are beginning to insist that marriages must be happy. Both before and after marriage the American girl is asking fair play.” “Fair play!” It was like the Professor. It was the Anglo-Saxon of her. Fair play--even in marriage. Applause to the sentiment! If Miss America stands for anything, if she personifies anything, I suppose it is social fair play. Sometimes woman seems to be asking a great deal, like the politicians, on the theory that nature is a reform administration and will cut down the appropriation. But whatever we may think of this, Miss America certainly is showing the influence of large concessions. I scarcely think that investigation will indicate that she is at all sordid. If her personal jurisdiction has thrown upon her the need to know about a man’s income, we must not despise the candor of her investigation. She may not agree with Perdita that “prosperity’s the very bond of love,” but she has seen the miseries engendered in marriages for money by lack of love, and in marriages for love by lack of money, and she perceives that money has caused the trouble in either case.