"Unless they're women."

"If I loved a woman I could love her when she became what is called a
ruin."

"If you were an old man who had crumbled gradually with her."

"As a young man, too. I was discussing--or rather flitting about,
dinner-party fashion--that very subject to-night."

"With whom?"

"Viola."

"The deuce! What line did you take?"

"That one loves--if one loves--the kernel, not the shell."

"And she?"

"You know her--the opposite."

"Ah!"

"And you, Carey?"

"I! I think if the shell is a beautiful shell and becomes suddenly broken
it makes a devil of a lot of difference in what most people think of the
kernel."