"You think that life has no greater happiness to offer you?"
"I am sure of it," said Hughie, with an air of one stating a simple truth.
"And you are twenty-one?"
"Ye—es," with less fire.
Jimmy Marrable smoked reflectively for a few minutes.
"I am an old bachelor," he said at last, "and old bachelors are supposed to know nothing about love-affairs. The truth of course is that they know far more than any one else."
Hughie was accustomed to these obiter dicta.
"Why?" he asked dutifully.
"Well, for the same reason that a broken swashbuckler knows a deal more about soldiering than a duly enrolled private of the line. He has had a more varied experience. The longer a man remains a bachelor the more he learns about women; and the more he learns about women the better able he will be to make his way in the world. Therefore, if he marries young he reduces his chances of success in life to a minimum. The sad part about it all is that, provided he gets the girl he wants, he doesn't care. That, by the way, is the reason why nearly all the most famous men in history have either been unhappily married or not married at all. Happiness has no history. Happily married men are never ambitious. They don't go toiling and panting after—"
"They have no need to," said Hughie. "A man doesn't go on running after a tram-car after he has caught it."