You're a middle-aged
man. You're set. You like life to jog along at a peaceful walk.
This girl wants it to be a fox-trot. You've got habits which
you have had for a dozen years. I ask you, is she the sort of girl
to be content to be a stepmother to a middle-aged man's habits? Of
course, if you were really in love with her, if she were your
mate, and all that sort of thing, you would take a pleasure in
making yourself over to suit her requirements. But you aren't in
love with her. You are simply caught by her looks. I tell you, you
ought to look on that moment when she gave you back your ring as
the luckiest moment of your life. You ought to make a sort of
anniversary of it. You ought to endow a hospital or something out
of pure gratitude. I don't know how long you're going to live--if
you act like a grown-up man instead of a boy and keep out of woods
and shrubberies at night you may live for ever--but you will never
have a greater bit of luck than the one that happened to you
to-night.'
Mr Pickering was convinced. His spirits soared. Marriage! What was
marriage? Slavery, not to be endured by your man of spirit. Look
at all the unhappy marriages you saw everywhere. Besides, you had
only to recall some of the novels and plays of recent years to get
the right angle on marriage.
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