George was very amusing.
"My dear boy," he said, "Violetta is upsetting all my calculations—she has refused everything I have offered her—But I fear she is beginning to show me too much devotion!"
This seemed a great calamity to him.
"It is terribly dangerous that, Nicholas!—because you know, my dear boy, when a woman shows absolute devotion, a man is irresistibly impelled to offer her a back seat—it is when she appeals to his senses, shows him caprice, and remains an insecure possession, that he will offer her the place his mother held of highest honour."
"George, you impossible cynic!"
"Not at all—I am merely a student of human instincts and characteristics—Half a cynic is a poor creature—A complete one has almost reached the mercy and tolerance of Christ."
This was quite a new view of the subject—!
He went on—.
"You see, when men philosophize about women, they are generally unjust, taking the subject from the standpoint that whatever frailties they have, the male is at all events exempt from them. Now that is nonsense—Neither sex is exempt—and neither sex as a rule will contemplate or admit its failings.—For instance, the sense of abstract truth in the noblest woman never prevents her lying for her lover or her child, yet she thinks herself quite honest—In the noblest man the sense is so strong that it enables him to make only the one exception, that of invariably lying to the woman!"
I laughed—he puffed one of my pre-war cigars—.