“It’s a wise provision of nature that the fools should be the girls.”
“Oh, I have known a fool or two among men,” said Mrs. Mowbray, with another laugh.
“Have known—did you say have known?” said Harold.
“Any girl who has lived in this world of ours for a quarter of a century, should have seen enough to make her aware of the fact that the best way to set about increasing the passion of, let us say, the average man—”
“No, the average man is passionless.”
“Well, the passion of whatever man you please—for a young woman whom he loves, or fancies he loves—it’s all the same in the end—is to induce him to believe that several other men are also in love with her.”
“That is one of the rudiments of a science of which you are the leading exponent,” said Harold.
“And yet Miss Craven was foolish enough to fancy that the man of whom she was thinking, would give himself up to think of her so soon as he believed that Mr. Airey was in love with her rival! Ah, here are our lentils and pulse. How good it is of you to imperil your digestions by taking supper with me, when only a few hours can have passed since you dined.”
“Digestion is not an immortal soul,” said Harold, “and I believe that immortal souls have been imperilled before now, for the sake of taking supper with the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Have you ever heard a woman say that I am beautiful?” she asked.