' 2 CLARENCE.

to do with his homelessness. The distrac-
tion of the theatre over, that dull, vague,
but aching sense of loneliness which was
daily growing upon him returned with
greater vigor.

He leaned back in the coupé and gloomily
reflected.

He had been married scarcely a year, yet
even in the illusions of the honeymoon the
woman, older than himself, and the widow
of his old patron, had half unconsciously
reasserted herself, and slipped back into the
domination of her old position. It was at
first pleasant enough,—-this half-maternal
protectorate which is apt to mingle even
with the afiections of younger women,— and
Clarence, in his easy, half-feminine intui-
tion of the sex, yielded, as the strong are
apt to yield, through the very consciousness
of their own superiority. But this is a
quality the weaker are not apt to recognize,
and the woman who has once tasted equal
power with her husband not only does not
easily relegate it, but even makes its contin-
uance a test of the afiections. The usual
triumphant feminine conclusion, “Then you
no longer love me,” had in Clarence’s brief
experience gone even further and reached