And yet how polite and altogether nice men are to you, aren’t they? How promptly they spring forward to take the lightest parcel from your hand, with what lackey-like deference do they hold open the door that you may pass out! Yes, but then you are a woman, a pretty and attractive woman of their own social standing. Again I say, watch. Do they show quite the same alacrity in the case of a less delightful or of a much older woman than you? Still further, do they show any disposition at all to carry the coal-box upstairs for the housemaid—and the housemaid, after all, is a woman, you know.
No; men do not love women. Or, if they love them they love them as the hawk loves the pigeon, or as you love chocolate almonds. Men, as men, do not, I repeat, love women as women; but I love you, and I am always
Your devoted
Father.