"Do you ever think of them?" he asked her.
"Only occasionally--when something happens that recalls a particular
man."
"What do you remember--their kisses?"
"All sorts of things.... Men are different with women."
"Different in what way?"
"Oh, entirely--and quite inexpressibly. Men who had the most firmly
rooted reputation for being this way or that would sometimes be
surprisingly inconsistent with me. Brutal men were tender, negligible
men were astonishingly loyal and lovable, and, often, honorable men took
attitudes that were anything but honorable."
"For instance?"
"Well, there was a boy named Percy Wolcott from Cornell who was quite a
hero in college, a great athlete, and saved a lot of people from a fire
or something like that. But I soon found he was stupid in a rather
dangerous way."
"What way?"
"It seems he had some naive conception of a woman 'fit to be his wife,'
a particular conception that I used to run into a lot and that always
drove me wild. He demanded a girl who'd never been kissed and who liked
to sew and sit home and pay tribute to his self-esteem. And I'll bet a
hat if he's gotten an idiot to sit and be stupid with him he's tearing
out on the side with some much speedier lady.
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