About this time I began to weary of the solitude of single life. Living with dear old John Mason in our flat in Twenty-eighth Street did not appeal to me. We were very respectable persons at the time and led a most exemplary life, irrespective of the opinions in vogue concerning our little Haven of Unrest.

It was while enduring those disconsolate hours that I became interested in Mrs. Nella Baker Pease, wife of a dilettante, living in Buffalo. She made her appearance nightly at the playhouse where we were performing and made herself particularly conspicuous by effusive applause, generally bestowed when the other portions of the audience had finished theirs. It was evident that she was discovering hidden beauties in my artistic efforts. We were finally introduced and became steadfast friends.

It took me but a little while to discover that she was a gifted woman, possessed of many talents, her most conspicuous one being music. She was the best amateur piano player to whom I have ever listened.

During my week's sojourn in Buffalo I was presented to her mother, sister, brother and husband. Her sister was charming. I wish I could say the same of the rest of her family. The brother must have emanated from the same pod in which the husband, Pease, was conceived, or on some coral reef where sponges predominate. He proved a most absorbing person.

I invited him once to spend a few days with us in New York. He wired that he was coming for "a cup of tea"—and stopped for two years!

With my inherent divinatory gift it required but a short time for me to satisfy myself that the little home of sunshine occupied by the row of Pease was in reality a whitened sepulchre. I discovered that Nella loathed her husband, but with the other members of her proud family was content to live with him and upon the bounty supplied by the dilettante's father (her hubby's papa).

She bestowed no love, not even respect, upon that dilettante hubby. During one of our interviews the husband was sent down town, her family was called in to meet me and at the earnest solicitations of them all I promised to endeavor to aid her in severing her matrimonial bonds. I also promised to fit her for the stage and to enlist the assistance of Steele Mackaye who was then preparing pupils for artistic careers and sunning himself upon the porch of Delsarte. After binding myself with these obligations I took my departure.

In a few days I was besieged with letters from Mrs. Pease and the family, earnestly entreating me not to forget my promises. Finally an epistle came from the husband endeavoring to persuade me to do something for him!

I did, all right!

To gratify his wife's ambition would I secure her an opening on the stage or put her with some good tutor? He would pay all the expenses, etc. Unfortunately for me I assumed this responsibility and succeeded in interesting my mother in Mrs. Pease's behalf, informing her of the harrowing details. So interested did my mother become at the recital of the unhappiness of this young lady that she invited her to spend a few days at our Boston home. Mrs. Pease was also fond of tea! She accepted the invitation—and remained for several months. In fact during her visit at my mother's house I had resumed my tour on the road and even made a trip to Europe!

Upon my return I met her in our Boston domicile where we were thrown a great deal into each other's society. She proved very attractive, being well educated, a fine conversationist, with a most lovable disposition. Her compositions and execution upon the piano were remarkable for an amateur.

In the meantime I had succeeded in interesting Mackaye and was about to place her in his charge, when, one day, I was served with papers from the husband who charged me with alienating his wife's affections! This dropped like a bomb-shell into our little circle, as nothing was further from my thoughts than marriage.

When the summons came she took it as a joke, saying, "What a splendid release from the little incubus!" Being at the time interested in a certain prima donna known to fame (I might say rather seriously interested), I confessed to a non-appreciative state of mind regarding her idea of humor and mildly suggested that she furnish some solution as a means of escaping from this most embarrassing situation. I realized the publicity and scandal that must surely come.

"It is very simple," said she. "Go to Buffalo, buy him off, come back to Boston and marry me. Your mother is very fond of me and I love her and Dad immensely; I am passionately fond of art; I think you are one of the most charming men whom I have ever met, and I know I can make you superlatively happy!"

After that what could a true-born American do?

I went to Buffalo, saw this half a husband (good title, that!), paid him five thousand dollars, stopped off in New York and explained the situation as best I could to my prima donna friend who tearfully told me that I was "doing the only thing a man could do."

I had "stolen the lady from her husband," "robbed his fireside," "broken up his home" and I "must necessarily abide the consequences."

"The world will condemn you, and it should, but she was certain, as was I, that my crime would be condoned and maybe in time forgiven."

The papers were beginning to hint at some unwholesome episode connected with our lives; accusations were being forged, ready to be hurled. I must marry at once and listen to her play the piano for the rest of my life! I was sure of one thing, however—she would never bore me and she never did. But, Gee Whiz! what a lot of things she did to equalize things.

Well, I kept my word. We were married and a beautiful boy came "to cement our union." From the time that that youngster, Nat C. Goodwin, III, came into the world until the law separated us, she was a changed woman. Up to that time we were happy. I purchased a fine residence on West End Avenue, New York, and our home was the rendezvous of some of the brightest lights of the artistic world.

And then she became insanely jealous of our darling boy and it is here that I drop the curtain upon our lives.

It is not my mission in this book to say anything unkind or harsh of any of the women who have married me. I wish to confine myself to speaking in terms of fullest appreciation of their virtues and merits, leaving it to wise censors to judge me. By some power of reasoning all men and women elect themselves the judges and juries of my actions. Their harsh criticisms I leave unanswered, being thoroughly satisfied in my own mind that I have committed no offense whatever against humanity, knowing that I have treated honest women as they should be treated, with all due deference and respect to womankind.

Poor Nella Baker! She abandoned the glitter and glare of the world of fashion to seek refuge in the bosom of Bohemia. She extricated herself from the vortex of society to get a glimpse of Real Life! The pet of drawing rooms, she became the wife of a comedian. She sought the atmosphere of Henri MÜrger, but, alas! found it not.

Marriages are made in Heaven—cancelled in Reno!

Perhaps some will object to a number of my attitudes in this book, particularly as regards my marital ventures. I have "no right to refer" to the sanctity of marriage—"a union of two souls," cemented by a (paid) preacher, "ordained by the Deity," etc! But these good people will mistake my attitudes. I do not recognize as sanctified any ceremony that can be annulled by a five-thousand-dollar-a-year judge.

Reno is known as the Mecca for vacillating souls. New York makes it look like thirty cents!

New York, by comparison, makes Reno look like a Mormon Mausoleum!

All you have to do in New York is to call at the Captain's office, behind closed doors, whisper "Guilty" and, presto, you go as free as the birds! If you are hoarse, send someone in your place, it's all the same. And yet people prate about "the holy bonds of matrimony!" Holy? Yes, with holes big enough to crawl through!

I leaped through my last one and had the aperture sewed behind me!

I presume that I shall be terribly censured by those goody-goody persons who are constantly preaching their trust in all mankind and womankind and expatiating upon filial devotion and implicit faith in those they profess to love. Bah! There is no perfect trust in perfect love.

Whenever I hear a man (or woman) express himself as being tremendously in love, combined with an abiding faith even if he and his mate are living in different zones, I always watch for the finale and generally read the epilogue in the Reno "Gazette." When married people are separated (this is from my point of view), unless he has misgivings when her name is mentioned and his pulse does not quicken, if he does not quiver when he is told that his wife was seen, beautifully arrayed, entertaining a party of friends at some particular garden party or golf club—the little messenger Cupid has taken wings. He may strut about like Chantecler, proclaiming that his crow awakens the slumbering embers of a dying passion, but he is only mesmerizing himself.

Married people should never be separated, not even by chamber doors. Our forefathers and mothers never occupied separate chambers when the time came for prayer and slumber. They were healthy people, if not fashionable. Canaries and monkeys provide the warmth and oils for their mates' bodies, but in this age of advancement and hypocrisy it is considered common to be human.

If mankind would study the ostrich and abide by its acts, morality would triumph and married people would always be together.

Distance lends enchantment only when the door of the cage is opened by mutual consent. When only one returns the door will be found rusty and difficult to close.