"
"You must try," she declared, "or I shall never, never dine with you
again. Nothing is so interesting as to see yourself from another's point
of view!"
"Is it understood," I asked, "that I am not held personally responsible
for my thoughts--that if I try to clothe them with words, I am held free
from offence?"
She considered for a moment.
"I suppose so," she said. "Yes! Go on."
I drank off my glass of wine, and waited until the waiter, who had been
carving a Rouen duckling on a stand by the side of the table, had stepped
back into the background.
"Very well!" I said. "I am thirty-three years old and a bachelor, well
off, and I have never been a stay-at-home. I know something of society in
Paris, in Vienna, in Rome, as well as London. I have always found women
agreeable companions, and I have never avoided them. The sex, as a whole,
has attracted me. From individual members of it I have happened to remain
absolutely heart-whole."
"Marvellous," she murmured in gentle derision. "Please pass the toast.
Thank you!"
"I have been compelled," I said, "to be egotistical.
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