"
"You mean men like them young?" said a select friend with brutal
candor.
"I mean they like them too young. In the case I'm thinking of, the
girl is a mere child. And quite uncultured. What possibility of
intellectual companionship could the most sanguine man expect?"
"None. But they don't want intellectual companionship." Another
select friend spoke bitterly. "I used to think they did. It seemed
reasonable. As the basis for a whole lifetime, it seemed the only
possible thing. But what's the use of insisting on a theory, no
matter how abstractly sound, if it is disproved in practice every
day? Remember Bobby Wells? He is quite famous now; knows more about
biology than any man on this side of the water. He married last
week. His wife is a pretty little creature who thinks protoplasm
another name for appendicitis."
There was a sympathetic pause.
"And biology was always such a fad of yours," sighed Mary
thoughtfully. "Never mind! They are sure to be frightfully unhappy."
"No, they won't. That's it. That's the point I am making. They'll be
as cozy as possible."
Miss Davis thought this point over after the select friend who made
it had gone. She did not wish to believe that its implication was a
true one. But, if it were, if youth, just youth, were the thing of
power, then it were wise that she should realize it before it was
too late. Her own share of the magic thing was swiftly passing.
From a drawer of her desk she took a recent letter from a Bainbridge
correspondent and re-read the part referring to the Spence
reception.
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