But this--if his wife had fallen in love with another man--and women had no discrimination where love was concerned--( if a decent chap got a lovely girl it was mainly by luck; the rotters got just as good)--then indeed he was in the midst of disaster without end.

The present was chaos and the future a blank.

He'd enlist in the first war and get himself shot....
Helene had a charming light coquetry, wholly French, and she exercised it indiscriminately, much to the delight of the old beaux, for she loved to please, to be admired; she had an innocent desire that all men should think her quite beautiful and irresistible.

Even her husband had never seen her in an unbecoming _deshabille_; she coquetted with him shamelessly, whenever she was not too gloriously serious and intent only upon making him happy.

Until lately-- This was by no means her ordinary form.
He had come upon too many couples in remote corners of conservatories, had been a not unaccomplished principal in his own day ...