"Yes," Colville assented, with a certain discomfort.
"But to be truly young at forty," resumed Mr. Waters, "a man should be already married."
"Yes?"
"I sometimes feel," continued the old man, "that I made a mistake in yielding to a disappointment that I met with early in life, and in not permitting myself the chance of retrieval. I have missed a beautiful and consoling experience in my devotion to a barren regret."
Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of amusement, of repulsion, and of curiosity at this.
"We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more convinced of that. We have scarcely a right to separate ourselves from the common lot in any way. I justify myself for having lived alone only as a widower might. I—lost her. It was a great while ago."
"Yes," said Colville, after the pause which ensued; "I agree with you that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of the common lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that one has no heart to put out his hand a second time—for a second rap over the knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and how what is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful for in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful whether you were ever really intended to share the common lot." He was aware of an insincerity in his words; he hoped that it might not be perceptible, but he did not greatly care.
Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He resumed from another point. "But I should say that it would be unwise for a man of mature life to seek his happiness with one much younger than himself. I don't deny that there are cases in which the disparity of years counts for little or nothing, but generally speaking, people ought to be as equally mated in age as possible. They ought to start with the same advantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live her life through a community of feeling, an equality of inexperience in the man she gives her heart to. If he is tired of things that still delight her, the chances of unhappiness are increased."
"Yes, that's true," answered Colville gravely. "It's apt to be a mistake and a wrong."
"Oh, not always—not always," said the old minister. "We mustn't look at it in that way quite. Wrongs are of the will." He seemed to lapse into a greater intimacy of feeling with Colville. "Have you seen Mrs. Bowen to-day? Or—ah! true! I think you told me."