women ever learn," he mused, "that it is as impossible to revive a man's interest in a woman he has completely gotten over loving as to make him want stale[106] champagne with all the fizz gone out of it?" [106] "I don't see why," said the widow. "A woman often falls in love with the same man twice." "Because she never falls too much in love with him—once," explained the bachelor. The widow's chatelaine rattled indignantly. "Nonsense!" she cried, "A woman's love is always stronger and deeper than a man's." "But it isn't so effervescent. She is a natural miser and she hoards her feelings. A man flings his sentiment about like a prodigal and naturally when it's all gone—there isn't any left." "Is that when he gets the 'tired[107] feeling?'" inquired the widow sympathetically. [107] "Yes," said the bachelor, "and nothing is worse than waking up in the morning with a dark brown taste in your mouth—to find the woman standing before you offering you more champagne. But she always does. A woman never seems to know when the logical conclusion of a love affair has arrived. She clings with all her strength to the tattered remnants of sentiment and shuts her eyes and tries to make believe it isn't morning, when she ought to go away——" "And let him sleep it off," suggested the widow. "That's it," agreed the bachelor, "I once knew a man who was infatuated with a woman who used attar of roses[108] on her gloves and things. When he woke up—I beg your pardon—after they had broken off, he never could abide the smell of roses." [108] "I suppose," said the widow, holding her muff against her cheek sentimentally, "it reminded him of all the tender little tête-à-têtes and moonlight nights and the way her hair curled about her forehead and the way she used to smile at him, and of her gloves and her ruffles and the color of her eyes and——" "It didn't!" said the bachelor emphatically. "It nauseated him. It's the woman who always remembers the pleasant part of a love affair. A man remembers only—the next morning—and the hard time he had getting out of it."[109] [109]
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