“There are plenty of decent, manly fellows knocking about the world,” said the soldier. Maltravers lit a second cigarette, and nodded to two youths in evening dress who were passing, with the complacent patronage of a minister in power. He was one of these men who are never so happy as when they are monopolizing the individual attention of a pretty woman. Maltravers preferred to pose as a very superior and sagacious person. “The folly of matrimony,” he said, “is that women will go and marry young idiots of five-and-twenty, and submit themselves to the conceited and priggish patronage of mere boys. Young men are unstable creatures, with the nonsense not knocked out of them by hard experience. Love runs with mumps and measles; we are all prone to it in youth.” The man with the white teeth and the waxed mustache delivered himself of his convictions with concentrated adroitness. His attitude was extremely politic. At all events, it pleased the woman to whom his words were addressed. “You approve, then,” she said, “of the man of forty as a matrimonial investment?” “Certainly I do.” “Rather an unromantic conclusion.” “Not a bit of it,” retorted the soldier. “Do you think all the romance of life belongs to the treacly twenties? Your youth of the lily period will swear away his immortal soul ten times in two years. Your tough man of forty has lived through his inconsistencies, and falls in love at last with the grim seriousness of one who knows what it means to be in earnest. He does not prattle and sentimentalize for six months and then revert to a barmaid. He loves like the man he is. You will find I am right, perhaps, some day.” Ophelia Strong smiled, it being her prerogative as a woman to seem amused. The veteran was refreshing and vigorous. “Your views amuse me,” she said. “I am not so sure that there is not truth in what you say. Young men do not realize how much some things mean to a woman. We are very human.” “Exactly; that is my chief point.” “Then you believe that we need much humoring and a great measure of consideration?” “You repeat my meaning.” “Well?” “A woman should find out whether a man knows how to love before she marries him.” “How should she arrive at the conclusion?” “If the man has any vanity, avoid him as you would avoid Satan. A man’s vices and foibles are more than half vanity. If you can tell the particular man that he is ugly or stupid, and he continues to adore you, then take him; he won’t make a bad husband.”