He had gotten up and now paced the room with long strides.
"Futile, Roger! Absolutely futile. In my heart even then, I think, I believed you narrow. You see, I'm frank. A few months in the world hasn't changed my opinion. But I do want to think straight." And then with a sigh as he paused alongside of me, "It's very perplexing sometimes."
I knew what he was thinking about and whom, but he would not speak.
"You have thought me narrow, Jerry, because I laid my life and yours along pleasant byways and ignored the beaten track. I've never told you why the world had grown distasteful to me. I think you ought to know. It may be worth something to you. The old story, always new—a girl, pretty, insincere. I was just out of the University, with a good education, some prospects, but no money. We became engaged. She was going to wait for me until I got a good professorship. But she didn't. In less than a year, without even the formality of breaking the engagement, she suddenly married a man who had money, a manufacturer of gas engines in Taunton, Massachusetts. I won't go into the details. They're rather sickening from this distance. But I thought you might like to know why I've never particularly cared to trust women."
"I supposed," he said, thoughtfully, "it might have been something like that. Women are queer. You think you know them, and then—" He paused, confession hovering on his lips, but some delicacy restrained him.
"Women, Jerry, are the flavoring of society; I regret that I have a poor digestion for sauces. I hope yours will be better."
He laughed. "Poor Roger; was she very pretty?"
"I can't remember. Probably. Calf love seldom considers anything else—prettiness! Yes she was pretty."
"How old were you?"
"Older than you Jerry—and wiser."