“You look comfortable,” he said. “Those gowns are the warmest things in the world. I have one that I wear when I sit by the fire all night and think. If my dinner does not agree with me, I do not sleep like a lamb.”
This was romantic! Hermia had a fine contempt for people who recognized the existence of their internal organs. She raised her brows. “Why do you eat too much?” she demanded.
“Because I happen to feel like it at the time. The philosophy of life is to resist as few temptations as you conveniently can. I have made it a habit to resist but three.”
“And they are?”
“To tell a woman I love her, to make love to the wife of a friend, and to have a girl on my conscience. The latter is a matter of comfort, not of principle. The girl of to-day nibbles the apple with her eyes wide open.”
Hermia did not know whether she was angry or not. Her experience with Cryder had affected her peculiarly. He had the super-refinement of all artificial natures, and there had been nothing in his influence to coarsen the fiber of her mind. Moreover, he had barely ruffled the surface of her nature. She always had a strange feeling of standing outside of herself, of looking speculatively on while the material and insignificant part of her “played at half a love with half a lover.”
She was not used to such abrupt statements, but she was too much interested to change the conversation.
“Do you mean that you never tell a woman when you love her?” she asked, after a moment.
“If I loved a woman I should tell her so, of course. I make it a principle never to tell a woman that I love her, because I never do. It saves trouble and reproaches.”
Hermia leaned forward. “Did not you love Mrs. Maitland?” she asked.