"But why did the girl—?"
"There is nothing to ask. Or, at any rate, there is no answer to anything. I suppose he asked himself every question about her conduct, but it was inexplicable."
"He should have asked her twice."
"It never occurred to him. And he has told me lately that she refused him with such considered firmness that it seemed unlikely that it was a whim."
"Well—poor Alfred! And yet it was only the merest chance, the merest run of bad luck—but it leaves him, you say, with the impression that we are flawed?"
"A terrible flaw. His opinion is that there is a deep coldness in women. In the brain, too, he feels them mortally unsound. Mad and cold he says now of all women, and therefore as unlike a normal man as a creature half-lunatic, half-snake."
"He thinks that of all women, young or old?"
"Yes, I think so. He tells me that whereas most men make the mistake of putting down womanly unreason to the score of their having too much heart, he puts it down to their having no heart at all, which he says is so mad a state that they are unrecognisable as human creatures."
"But—(alas, poor Alfred)—you have made a charming confidante for us!"
"Confidante? He will make the best. He is devoted to me."