I.

Of course it happened at the club. Things of this kind always happen at a club, either because the members feel freer to discuss the weaker sex when they are not around, or because some men think a club the only place for such speeches.

John Harris made the remark, and Walter Andrews, the pet of half the ladies in the town, was its bitterest opposer.

“I do not believe it,” he said vehemently. “You can not make me believe it.”

“Nevertheless, my boy, I repeat; no one ever saw or heard of a really beautiful woman who was good. Mark you, I’m not saying anything against the merely ‘very pretty girl.’ I’ll admit that there are some very pretty women who, in addition to their loveliness, are really good. But these are merely pretty, not beautiful,” Harris replied.

“What is your standard of ‘goodness’ in a woman, anyway?”

“Well, I’ll admit that my ideal woman would be hard to find. Even the ‘goodness’ part would be largely above par in a plain, ugly woman, let alone in a beautiful one. So I’ll take off a few requirements, and if you can find me a woman who is not a flirt even in the strictest sense of the word, and who never has been accused of trying to make a man love her, and, when she has him in that fix, declare that she only ‘likes him,’ and ‘hopes that they’ll always be friends’; if you can find such a woman, I’ll--but you can’t.”

The subject was dropped, and shortly after Andrews left the club. He went home early and to bed, but sleep did not come as it was wont to. All night long he tossed thinking of what Harris had said, and wondering where he could find a woman who could come up to the requirements.