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But it is safe to say that the greater number of those who talk much about love are those whose love is either undeveloped or in some way awry, and that unconsciously they are attempting to straighten themselves out, in their own eyes or in the eyes of their friends.

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The most exciting conversation on love is, of course, that between two persons of opposite sex. And in many social circles there has of late sprung up a new term. A married woman will have some particular male friend not her husband, whom she laughingly refers to as her “playmate.” With this “mate” she plays at love and love-making under the guise of serious discussion. In some coteries, the married woman’s playmate may be some other woman’s husband, but the favourites for playmates are unmarried men.[6]

These “little beaux” or “playmates” are an indication of the essential childishness of the marriage relation where they play a part, and the position of the husband whose wife needs such amusement is an exceedingly unenviable one, no matter how purely Platonic the relation may be between his wife and her playmate.