Man and Maid

He was smoking contemplatively.

I laughed--.

"You see, dear boy--one can't be brutal with the little darlings, so

that is the only course open to one, for their limited reasoning power

does not enable them to grasp that it is not one's fault at all when one

ceases to care--the trouble lies with their own weakening

attraction.--So one has to go on bluffing until they themselves weary,

or find out inadvertently that one's affection has been transferred!"

"Don't you think there are some to whom you could tell the truth?"

"I have not met any--if they do exist."

"If I were a woman it would insult me far more for a man to think I was

so stupid that he could deceive me, than if he said frankly he no longer

cared."

"Probably--but then women don't reason in that way--you might prove by

every law of logic that it was because they themselves had disillusioned

you, and that you had no control over the coming or going of your

emotion--but at the end of your peroration they would still reproach you

for being a fickle brute, and believe themselves blameless, and sinned

against!"

"It is all very difficult!"--I sighed unconsciously--.

--"Are you in some mess, my son?" George asked concernedly.--"In your

case with Suzette, money can always smooth things--she has perhaps been

annoying?"

"I have entirely finished with Suzette--George, how a man pays for all

his follies--Have you, with all your affairs, ever got off scot free?"

George leaned back in his chair--his well cut face which expresses as a

rule a rather kindly whimsical cynicism grew stern--and his very voice

altered.

"Nicholas--one has to pay one's shot every time--A man pays in money, or

in jewels or in disgrace, or in regret and remorse--and he has to

calculate beforehand to what extent that which he desires is worth the

price which will become due--It is a brainless idiot who does not

calculate, or who laments when he has to stump up. I admit women are of

supreme interest to me, and their companionship and affection--bought or

otherwise--are necessary to my existence--So I resignedly discharged my

debt every time."

"How will you pay it then about Violetta whom you say is an angel, and

blameless?"

"I shall have some disgusting moments of discomfort and remorse--and

feel a moral Bluebeard--I shan't go scot free--."

"And she--? That won't help her."

"She will pay in tears for having been weak enough to love me--she will

feel the consolation of martyrdom--and soon forget me."