She is not unhappy, this wife, in the fifth and sixth year of marriage. After the first romantic illusions failed her she settled down quietly enough to play the game. It is quite interesting, quite amusing. Now and again queer doubts assail her, and she has strange flutterings at the heart, and little pinpricks of conscience. It is about the question of motherhood. Perhaps it would be better for her to have a baby. However, she has threshed out the question a hundred times with her husband, and he has decided that he cannot afford a family yet, and after all the flat _is_ very small. Besides, she shirks the idea herself--all the pain of it, and the trouble of it.... She thrusts down these queer doubts, does not listen to the flutterings at the heart, ignores the little pinpricks of conscience. She turns quickly to the interests of her social life and falls easily into the habit of pleasant laziness, filling her day with little futile things, which seem to satisfy her heart and brain. When her husband has gone to business she dresses herself rather elaborately for a morning stroll, manicures her nails, tries a new preparation for the complexion, alters a feather, or a flower, in one of her hats, studies herself in the glass, and is pleased with herself. It passes the time. Then she saunters forth, and goes to the shops, peering in through the great plate-glass windows at the latest display of lingerie, of evening gowns, of millinery. She fancies herself in some of the new hats from Paris. One or two of them attract her especially. She makes a mental note of them. She will ask her husband to let her buy one of them. After all Mrs. Fitzmaurice had a new hat only last week--the second in one month. She will tell him that. It will pique him, for there is a rather amusing rivalry between the Fitzmaurices and them. So the morning passes until luncheon, when she props the morning newspaper against the water-jug, reading the titbits of news and the fashion page while she eats her meal, rather nicely cooked by the new servant, and daintily served by the little housemaid. Another hour of the day passes, and it is the afternoon. She lies down for half an hour with the latest novel from Mudie’s. It has a good plot, and is a rather exciting love-story. It brings back romance to her. For a little while she forgets the reality which she has learnt since her own romantic days. Here love is exactly what she imagined it to he, thrilling, joyous, never-changing. The hero is exactly what she imagined her husband to be--before he was her husband--strong, gentle, noble, high-souled, immensely patient. And after many little troubles, misadventures, cross-purposes, and strange happenings, marriage is the great reward, the splendid compensation. After this the hero and heroine live happily ever afterwards, till death does them part, and--there is nothing more to be said. The novel ends with the marriage bells.