know! But at thirty! Oh, ye gods, Barton! If a girl interests you at
thirty you'll be utterly mad about her when she's forty--fifty--sixty!
If she's merry at thirty, if she's ardent, if she's tender, it's her
own established merriment, it's her own irreducible ardor, it's
her--Why, man alive! Why--why--"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" gasped Barton. "Whoa there! Go slow! How in
creation do you expect anybody to follow you?"

"Follow me? Follow me?" mused the Older Man perplexedly. Staring very
hard at Barton, he took the opportunity to swallow rather loudly once
or twice.

"Now speaking of Miss Edgarton," he resumed persistently, "now,
speaking of this Miss Edgarton, I don't presume for an instant that
you're looking for a wife on this trip, but are merely hankering a bit
now and then for something rather specially diverting in the line of
feminine companionship?"

"Well, what of it?" conceded the Younger Man.

"This of it," argued the Older Man. "If you are really craving the
interesting why don't you go out and rummage around for it? Rummage
around was what I said! Yes! The real hundred-cent-to-the-dollar
treasures of Life, you know, aren't apt to be found labeled as such
and lying round very loose on the smugly paved general highway! And
astonishingly good looks and astonishingly good clothes are pretty
nearly always equivalent to a sign saying, 'I've already been
discovered, thank you!' But the really big sport of existence, young
man, is to strike out somewhere and discover things for yourself!"