"I believe you are right," said Marsboro, "I know, in my own case at least, that I can remember distinctly how beautiful my young ideal was. But Life is jealous of ideals; he shatters them with a single whiff of experience. And it happened as you just now said: as I descended, my ideals descended. I only hope"—he sighed, half in jest, half in earnest,—"that I will begin the upward climb and succeed in winning up."
"Ah," assented Stanley, "that is always the interesting problem. Which it will be: the elevator with the index pointing to 'Up' or the one destined 'Down.' You needn't look so curiously at me, Van, I know what you are wondering. Well you can rest easy in the assurance I give you: the nether slopes are beckoning to me. I became aware of it long ago, reconciled moreover. I live merely for the moment. My senses must amuse me until there is nothing left of them; that is all. But look here: don't think there is no reverse to the medal. I have, fate knows, my moments of being horrified at myself. It is, I presume, at the times when the ghost of my conscience comes to ask why it was murdered." He appeared to be concentrating all his attention on the ashes at the end of his cigarette. "Why, don't you know that there is no longer any meaning for me in any of those words: honor, and truth, and virtue? I have no standards, except my digestion, and my nerves. I don't mistreat my wife simply because it would come back to me in a thousand little annoyances that would grate on my nerves." He sipped slowly at the glass by his side. "And I'm not worse than some other men!"
"True. All of which is a pity. But we've got off the subject. The villainy of ourselves is too patent a proposition. The question is, by what right we continue to expect of the women we marry that which they dare not expect of us.
"Are you the mouthpiece of the New Woman? Well, the Creator made man king, and the laws of physiology cannot be twisted to suit the New Woman. For it is, in essentials, unfortunately a question of physiological consequences. Wherefore, suppose we stop the argument. This is not a medical congress!"
Stanley went over to the desk where the periodicals lay, and picking one up, began, with a cigarette in his mouth, to let his eyes rest on the printed pages.
"Will you go, if you're asked?" Marsboro said, presently.
"I?" Stanley looked up carelessly. "Certainly. As far as I'm concerned a man may marry the devil and all his angels. But I wouldn't take my wife or my sister."
Vanstruther laughed dryly. "If women were to apply the tit-for-tat principle," he said, "what terribly small visiting lists most of us fellows would have!"
But Stanley disdained further discussion, and the other men got up to go. When they had passed beyond the curtains Stanley laid down the paper he had been reading, and smiled to himself. He was wondering why he had been led into this waste of breath. A man's life was a man's life, and what was the use of cavilling at facts! The only thing to do was to take life lightly and to let nothing matter. Also, one must amuse oneself! If the manner of the amusement was distasteful or hurtful to others, why—so much the worse for the others!
So musing, Laurence Stanley passed into a light slumber, and dreamed of impossible virtues.