"You may well say devoted; for if Claribel or Imogen were to wish for an icicle from the end of the North Pole with which to cool a lemonade, either Harry Vincent or Clarence Hastings would hurry thither and slip off into the unfathomable abyss of space in a desperate attempt to obtain it."
"Your imagination is both hyperborean and hyperbolical. But let us return from the North Pole to the ladies. Claribel loves Clarence, and Imogen Harry, and yet neither will marry the man she loves."
"And why not, oh, prophet?"
"Because no pretty woman ever does. Each lady will select some nonentity of the masculine gender, and expect her lover to enter into a contest of rivalry. Each gentleman will decline the contest."
"Why so?"
"I know them both. Each is a proud man, and has an abundance of self-respect. No daughter of Eve can comprehend a proud man, though every woman knows how to manage a vain one to perfection. Although either Harry or Clarence would, as you say, go to the North Pole in obedience to the wishes of the woman he adores, neither of them will consent to humiliation for her sake. She will persist in her course, and will ultimately find herself abandoned by her lover. Then, after a few years——"
"Well, what after a few years?"
"You will behold the once fairy-like Claribel a matron of robust proportions, married to a plain man, who made her an offer in a business-like manner."
"And Clarence?"
"A bald-headed man, who, having worked like a beaver and made a large fortune, is enjoying it with a wife who is as ugly as sin, but is a most excellent manager of his domestic affairs."