Professor Howel-Jones looked hard at his notes, but for once he scarcely saw them. He knew that the letter he had just read was the work of a sentimental lunatic, but for all that it had set a string vibrating. As the old man sat there, his brown eyes abstracted under the thatch of hair as white as seeding clematis, he looked like some clean-shaven modern Druid seeing visions. He did, at that moment, see a vision.
He saw an endless procession of those people who have loved or married (or both) the wrong person.
He saw the lads who have chosen out of their class; barmaids, "bits of fluff."
He saw the girls who have married out of their generation.
He saw the flirts, who wear an attachment as they wear a hat, tied for life to the affection that is true as steel. (Dreadful for both of them!)
Also the young men who treat Love as a cross between a meal and a music-hall joke, plighted to the shy idealists.
He saw the Bohemian married to the curate.
Likewise the attractive young rake, fettered to the frump.
He saw the women born for motherhood, left lonely spinsters for want of charm to attract.