The bachelor lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

"Before I discovered," she explained,[154] "that it was just as often a woman with butter-colored hair and a tailor-made figure and a 'past' and a manufactured 'bloom of health.' The truth is," she concluded, stabbing her needle very carefully into the centre of an unhealthy looking green silk rose, "that no two men admire the same woman, and no one man admires the same thing in two women. Now, there's Miss Gunning, who wears a sweater and says 'damn' and is perfectly natural and self-respecting and——"

[154]

"No man gets ecstatic over a bad imitation of himself!" expostulated the bachelor.

"Then why," said the widow, laying down her needle and fixing the bachelor with a glittering eye, "do you spend so much time on the golf[155] links, and out driving and hunting and walking with her?"

[155]

"Because," explained the bachelor, meekly, "she sometimes hits the ball, and she can sit in her saddle without being tied there, and she doesn't grab the reins nor call a 'hoof' a 'paw.' But," he added fervently, "I'd take my hat and run if she asked me to spend my life with her."

"Oh, well," the widow tossed her head independently. "She won't. Miss Gunning can take care of herself."

"That's just it!" pursued the bachelor. "The very fact that she can take care of herself and get across gutters alone and pick up things for herself and handle her own horse and beat me at golf and tennis, takes away that gratifying sense of protection—"[156]

[156]

"And superiority," interposed the widow softly.

"That a man likes to feel toward a woman," concluded the bachelor, ignoring her. "Muscle and biceps and a 32-inch waist," he added, "are 'refreshing,' but in time they get on your nerves. It may not be immoral for a dear little thing to say 'damn,' but it affects a man just as it would to hear a canary bird squawking like a parrot. When a chap is going for a walk cross country he may pick out the girl with the stride and the strong back, who can leap a fence and help herself over puddles, to accompany him, but when he is ready for a walk to the altar he naturally prefers somebody who understands the art of leaning gently on the masculine arm[157] and who hasn't any rough edges or——"

 Prev. P 56/65 next