now, as being incapable of even understanding what frank dealing is, or
honor, or justice, or anything beyond their own vain and selfish
caprices?"

George Brand went to the window.

"Perhaps," said he, "my experience of women has been unfortunate,
unusual. I have not had much chance, especially of late years, of
studying them in their quiet domestic spheres. But otherwise I suppose
my experience is not unusual. Every man begins his life, in his salad
days, by believing the world to be a very fine thing, and women
particularly to be very wonderful creatures--angels, in short, of
goodness, and mercy, and truth, and all the rest of it. Then, judging by
what I have seen and heard, I should say that about nineteen men out of
twenty get a regular facer--just at the most sensitive period of their
life; and then they suddenly believe that women are devils, and the
world a delusion. It is bad logic; but they are not in a mood for
reason. By-and-by the process of recovery begins: with some short, with
others long. But the spring-time of belief, and hope, and rejoicing--I
doubt whether that ever comes back."

He spoke without any bitterness. If the facts of the world were so, they
had to be accepted.

"I swallowed my dose of experience a good many years ago," he continued,
"but I haven't got it out of my blood yet. However, I will admit to you
the possibility of there being a few women like Natalie Lind."

"Well, this is better, at all events," Lord Evelyn said, cheerfully.