She was beautiful. Her eyes were the Koh-i-noor, her hair a wealth of golden colors, a mass of soft, strong fetters that bound the hearts of men and made their minds dream and hunger and hope and despair. Her face was fate for men, her soul their destiny. He was homely. They met. She may have been amused or amazed, surprised or startled or merely curious in a woman’s way; she may have been attracted through the mystic law of contrast, or something else that we can only describe by “something else,” but she was drawn to him. They married. The newspapers called them “Beauty and the Beast.” Perhaps it hurt his masculinity a little; we are certain it pleased her. Then things changed a little bit. She was a woman, a young woman, a beautiful young woman who knew it, and he had a handsome friend. He noticed that she was tired, and he left her free. His friend was handsome. He ran for office, lived in the fight to forget, but the scandal cost him the election. So he forgot God. A long, long time afterwards, as time is measured by suffering, he received a note from his friend asking forgiveness. Those who cannot forget forgive, so he joined his friend and together they found riches but missed happiness. He read a personal in a newspaper one day, and this was the message: “Will beast forgive beauty and come back to her and the baby?” Did he go back? Well, love’s a mighty funny proposition!