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The boy grew up and by and by a baby sister arrived. Now Mary-Louisa began to show the most tender solicitude for the future of the children, and not a day passed but she tried to convince their father that nothing but a legal marriage with her would safeguard their interests.

In addition to this his sister gave him a very plain hint to the effect that a reconciliation with his parents was within the scope of possibility, if he would but legalise his liaison.

After having fought against it day and night for two years, he consented at last, and resolved that for the children’s sake the mythological ceremony should be allowed to take place.

But whom should they ask to the wedding? Mary-Louisa insisted on being married in church. In this case Sophy could not be invited. That was an impossibility. A girl like her! Mary-Louisa had already learnt to pronounce the word “girl” with a decidedly moral accent. He reminded her that Sophy had been a good friend to her, and that ingratitude was not a very fine quality. Mary-Louisa, however, pointed out that parents must be prepared to sacrifice private sympathies at the altar of their children’s prospects; and she carried the day.

The wedding took place.

The wedding was over. No invitation arrived from his parents, but a furious letter from Sophy which resulted in a complete rupture.

Mary-Louisa was a wedded wife, now. But she was more lonely than she had been before. Embittered by her disappointment, sure of her husband who was now legally tied to her, she began to take all those liberties which married people look upon as their right. What she had once regarded in the light of a voluntary gift, she now considered a tribute due to her. She entrenched herself behind the honourable title of “the mother of his children,” and from there she made her sallies.

Simple-minded, as all duped husbands are, he could never grasp what constituted the sacredness in the fact that she was the mother of his children. Why his children should be different from other children, and from himself, was a riddle to him.

But, with an easy conscience, because his children had a legal mother now, he commenced to take again an interest in the world which he had to a certain extent forgotten in the first ecstasy of his love-dream, and which later on he had neglected because he hated to leave his wife and children alone.

These liberties displeased his wife, and since there was no necessity for her to mince matters now, and she was of an outspoken disposition, she made no secrets of her thoughts.

But he had all the lawyer’s tricks at his fingers’ ends, and was never at a loss for a reply.

“Do you think it right,” she asked, “to leave the mother of your children alone at home with them, while you spend your time at a public house?”

“I don’t believe you missed me,” he answered by way of a preliminary.

“Missed you? If the husband spends the housekeeping money on drink, the wife will miss a great many things in the house.”

“To start with I don’t drink, for I merely have a mouthful of food and drink a cup of coffee; secondly, I don’t spend the housekeeping money on drink, for you keep it locked up: I have other funds which I spend ‘on drink.'”

Unfortunately women cannot stand satire, and the noose, made in fun, was at once thrown round his neck.

“You do admit, then, that you drink?”

“No, I don’t, I used your expression in fun.”

“In fun? You are making fun of your wife? You never used to do that!”

“You wanted the marriage ceremony. Why are things so different now?”

“Because we are married, of course.”

“Partly because of that, and partly because intoxication has the quality of passing off.”

“It was only intoxication in your case, then?”

“Not only in my case; in your case, too, and in all others as well. It passes off more or less quickly.”