“If that is a conundrum, I can answer it the first time. Because you are a fossil. You are too good, Renny; therefore dull and uninteresting. Now, there is nothing a woman likes so much as to reclaim a man. It always annoys a woman to know that the man she is interested in has a past with which she has had nothing to do. If he is wicked and she can sort of make him over, like an old dress, she revels in the process. She flatters herself she makes a new man of him, and thinks she owns that new man by right of manufacture. We owe it to the sex, Renny, to give ‘em a chance at reforming us. I have known men who hated tobacco take to smoking merely to give it up joyfully for the sake of the women they loved. Now, if a man is perfect to begin with, what is a dear, ministering angel of a woman to do with him? Manifestly nothing. The trouble with you, Renny, is that you are too evidently ruled by a good and well-trained conscience, and naturally all women you meet intuitively see this, and have no use for you. A little wickedness would be the making of you.”
“You think, then, that if a man’s impulse is to do what his conscience tells him is wrong, he should follow his impulse, and not his conscience?”
“You state the case with unnecessary seriousness. I believe that an occasional blow-out is good for a man. But if you ever have an impulse of that kind, I think you should give way to it for once, just to see how it feels. A man who is too good gets conceited about himself.”
“I half believe you are right, Mr. Yates,” said the professor, rising. “I will act on your advice, and, as you put it, see how it feels. My conscience tells me that I should congratulate you, and wish you a long and happy life with the girl you have—I won’t say chosen, but tossed up for. The natural man in me, on the other hand, urges me to break every bone in your worthless body. Throw off your coat, Yates.”
“Oh, I say, Renmark, you’re crazy.”
“Perhaps so. Be all the more on your guard, if you believe it. A lunatic is sometimes dangerous.”
“Oh, go away. You’re dreaming. You’re talking in your sleep. What! Fight? Tonight? Nonsense!”
“Do you want me to strike you before you are ready?”
“No, Renny, no. My wants are always modest. I don’t wish to fight at all, especially to-night. I’m a reformed man, I tell you. I have no desire to bid good-by to my best girl with a black eye to-morrow.”
“Then stop talking, if you can, and defend yourself.”