Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/74

'Have you read Browning and the daily papers?' he replied and laughed again.

'Well,' the major cried indignantly, 'the minx; why on earth did she make up that fiction?'

'Oh, why?' laughed Davison, 'except because there was a melancholy man with his story, and a lovely moonlight night, and the sound of soft music, and——'

' Oh, I know,' the major said impatiently, 'all that was there to account for it.'

'And something else,' Davison said solemnly: 'there was also "woman."'

The major was very angry.

'I need not impress on you fellows what you all know,' he said, 'and that is how indifferent I am to women. Indeed, the memory of Laura alone keeps me from being a woman-hater. The sex is full of deceit. I give up the possibilities of trying to understand them. Sometimes they appear to me to be merely wholly irresponsible beings, at others, almost criminals.'

'O major, draw it mild,' ejaculated Macarthy. 'Have they no virtues?'

'Virtues!' The major lifted his hands, then