without it. In fact, I am. But you have never had any at all, and it is
as absurd to suppose that young birds will not try to fly as that young
men will not want amusement, now and then."

"I suppose that women cannot always understand that," said Marcello,
after a moment.

"Women," replied Folco, unmoved, "do not always distinguish quite
closely between excitement that is harmless for a man and excitement
which is not. To tell the truth," he added, with a laugh, "they hardly
ever distinguish at all, and it is quite useless to talk to them about
it."

"But surely, there are exceptions?"

"Not many. That is the reason why there is a sort of freemasonry among
men of the world, a kind of tacit agreement that women need not be told
what goes on at the clubs, and at men's dinners, and late at night when
old friends have spent an evening together. Not that there is any harm
in it all; but women would not understand. They have their innocent
little mysteries which they keep from us, and we have harmless little
secrets which we do not let them know."

Folco laughed softly at his own way of putting it, and perhaps because
Marcello so easily accepted his point of view.

"I see," said the boy. "I wonder whether my mother would not understand
that. It seems so simple!"

"She will, when the time comes, no doubt," answered Corbario. "Your