"I'm not arguing in favor of marriage at all," protested the bachelor plaintively. "But marrying for life is like putting the whole dinner on the table at once. It takes away your[146] appetite. Marrying on trial would be more like serving it in courses."

[146]

"And changing the course would be such a strain," declared the widow. "Why, when the contract was up how would you know how to divide things—the children and—"

"The dog and the cat."

"And all the little mementos you had collected together and the things you had shared in common and the favorite arm chair and the things you had grown used to and fond of——"

"Oh, well, in that case," remarked the bachelor, "you might have grown so used to and fond of one another that when it came to the parting of the ways, you would not want to part them. After all," he went on soberly, "if 'trial marriages' were put into effect, they would end nine times out[147] of ten in good old fashioned matrimony. A man can get as accustomed to a woman as he does to a pipe or a chair——"

[147]

"What!"

"And a woman," pursued the bachelor, "can become as attached to a man and as fond of him as she is of an old umbrella or a pair of old shoes that have done good service. No matter how battered or worn they may become, nor how many breaks there are in them, we can never find anything to quite take their place. Matrimony, after all, is just a habit; and husbands and wives become habits—habits that however disagreeable they may be we don't want to part with. 'Trial marriages,' even if they should be tried, wouldn't alter things much. As long as two people[148] can stand one another they will cling together anyhow, and if they can't they won't anyhow; and whether it's a run out lease or a divorce or prussic acid that separates them doesn't make much difference. Custom, not the wedding certificate, is the tie that binds most of us. The savage doesn't need any laws to hold him to the woman of his choice. Habit does it; and if habit doesn't the woman will!"

[148]

The widow sighed and leaned back in her chair.

"I suppose so," she said, "but it seems dreadfully dreary."

"What seems dreadfully dreary?" inquired the bachelor.

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