“She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope he won't make a fool of himself.”
“I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He was paying her a great deal of attention—the night we saw you at the theatre.”
Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of expression, and he said: “She is called the belle of the bar. Hers is the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English girl; all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-ordination is an irresistible force against some young men; their natures demand the freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of—”
“Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness.”
“That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of May and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the lover of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms touch him not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman of thirty, and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of thirty. The universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of literature. There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of thirty, there is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but—”
“And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?”
“No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so if it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world must have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every second woman will run after him—ladies of rank, prostitutes, maid-servants—when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change his mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required, he will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper with him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with fear.”
“You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?”
“Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths to the man as to the woman—worse, for woman's youth is longer than man's. The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular opinions, it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man never. I was saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because the chorus girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings, because the lady of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken up his hat to go to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-maid did not look lusciously round the corner when he passed her in the passage. He looks in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous changes in his person. His fears have no foundation in fact—or should I say in the flesh? A year after the duchess makes overtures, the chorus girl threatens to throw up her engagement for him, and the chambermaid pesters him with unnecessary questions concerning baths and towels. These facts tend to show, indeed I think they prove, that love is a magnetism, which sometimes we possess in almost irresistible strength, and which sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent extinction.”
“Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of making oneself beloved?” said Fletcher.