A weak, pretty creature not
worth a thought from either of them; but women love the unworthy;
there would be no over-population problem did they not; and this
poor specimen, ill-luck had ordained they should contend for.
Their rivalry brought out all that was worst in both of them. It is
a mistake to suppose love only elevates; it can debase. It was a
mean struggle for what to an onlooker must have appeared a
remarkably unsatisfying prize. The loser might well have left the
conqueror to her poor triumph, even granting it had been gained
unfairly. But the old, ugly, primeval passions had been stirred in
these women, and the wedding-bells closed only the first act.
The second is not difficult to guess. It would have ended in the
Divorce Court had not the deserted wife felt that a finer revenge
would be secured to her by silence.
In the third, after an interval of only eighteen months, the man
died--the first piece of good fortune that seems to have occurred to
him personally throughout the play. His position must have been an
exceedingly anxious one from the beginning. Notwithstanding his
flabbiness, one cannot but regard him with a certain amount of pity-
-not unmixed with amusement.
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