One evening at the Federal Club I fell in with my old acquaintance, Sam Cauldwell, the fashionable physician. He was something more than that--or had been--but was too lazy to use his mind when his gift for sympathetic and flattering gab brought him in plenty of money. Cauldwell was a trained, thoroughgoing sycophant and snob. But he saw the humorous aspect of the gods he was on his knees before--and saw the humor of his being there. He knew the kind of man I was, and liked to take me aside and make sport of his deities for an hour over a bottle of wine. Also--he liked the idea of being, and of being seen, intimate with a man conspicuous for wealth and for the social position of his family--the ex-husband of a princess, the father of a marchioness. Gentle reader, if you wish to see human nature to its depth, you must occupy such a position as mine. Believe me, you are mistaken in thinking the traits you shamedly hide are unique. There are others like you--many others. Cauldwell was perhaps ten years older than I, but being a well-taken-care-of New Yorker, he passed for a young man--which, indeed, he was. I do not regard fifty as anything but young unless it insists upon another estimate by looking older than it really is. I shall assuredly be young at fifty, perhaps younger than I am now, for I take better care of my health every year--and I have health worth taking care of. But, as I was about to say, Cauldwell had a meditative look that night as we sat down to dinner together. And when he had drunk his third glass of champagne he said: “Loring, why the devil don’t you get married?” I felt that he had something especial to say to me. I answered indifferently, “Why don’t _you_?” “Very simple,” replied he. “Not rich enough. To marry in New York a man must be either a pauper or a Crœsus.” “Then marry a rich girl,” said I. “I’d have done it long ago if I could,” he confessed with a laugh. “But I’ve never been able to get at the girls who are rich enough. Their mammas guard them for plutocrats or titles. But you-- Really, it’s a shame for you to stay single. I know a dozen women who’re losing sleep longing for you--for themselves, or for some lovely young daughter.” “Pathetic,” said I. “I see that irritates you. Well--you needn’t be alarmed. You’re famed for being about the wariest bird in the preserves. And I know you don’t want that kind of woman. Why not take the kind you do want?” “Where is she?” said I. “I could name a dozen,” rejoined he. “But I shan’t name any. I have one in mind. A doctor has the best opportunity in the world to find out about women--about men, too--the truth about them.” I laughed. “If I wanted misinformation about human nature,” said I, “I’d go to a doctor--or a preacher. They’re the depositories of all the hysterical tommyrot, all the sentimental lies that vain women and men think out about themselves and their sex relations.”