“There is no other passion to be compared with it.  A woman’s passion is degrading.  She is continually tempting you.  She wants your desire as a satisfaction for her vanity more than anything else, and her vanity is insatiable if her desire is weak, and so she continually tempts you to excess, and then blames you for the physical satiety and disgust which she herself has created.  With a boy there is no vanity in the matter, no jealousy, and therefore none of the tempting, not a tenth part of the coarseness; and consequently desire is always fresh and keen.  Oh, Frank, believe me, you don’t know what a great romantic passion is.”

“What you say only shows how little you know women,” I replied.  “If you explained all this to the girl who loves you, she would see it at once, and her tenderness would grow with her self-abnegation; we all grow by giving.  If the woman cares more than the man for caresses and kindness, it is because she feels more tenderness, and is capable of intenser devotion.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about, Frank,” he retorted.  “You repeat the old accepted commonplaces.  The boy came to the station with me to-night.  He knew I was going away for six months.  His heart was like lead, tears gathered in his eyes again and again in spite of himself, and yet he tried to be gay and bright for my sake; he wanted to show me how glad he was that I should be happy, how thankful he was for all I had done for him, and the new mental life I had created in him.  He did his best to keep my courage up.  I cried, but he shook his tears away.  ‘Six months will soon be over,’ he said, ’and perhaps you will come back to me, and I shall be glad again.’  Meantime he will write charming letters to me, I’m sure.

“Would any girl take a parting like that?  No; she would be jealous and envious, and wonder why you were enjoying yourself in the South while she was condemned to live in the rainy, cold North.  Would she ask you to tell her of all the beautiful girls you met, and whether they were charming and bright, as the boy asked me to tell him of all the interesting people I should meet, so that he, too, might take an interest in them?  A girl in his place would have been ill with envy and malice and jealousy.  Again I repeat, you don’t know what a high romantic passion is.”

“Your argument is illogical,” I cried, “if the girl is jealous, it is because she has given herself more completely:  her exclusiveness is the other side of her devotion and tenderness; she wants to do everything for you, to be with you and help you in every way, and in case of illness or poverty or danger, you would find how much more she had to give than your red-breeched soldier.”

“That’s merely a rude gibe and not an argument, Frank.”

“As good an argument as your ‘cats,’” I replied; “your little soldier boy with his nickel-plated bicycle only makes me grin,” and I grinned.

“You are unpardonable,” he cried, “unpardonable, and in your soul you know that all the weight of argument is on my side.  In your soul you must know it.  What is the food of passion, Frank, but beauty, beauty alone, beauty always, and in beauty of form and vigour of life there is no comparison.  If you loved beauty as intensely as I do, you would feel as I feel.  It is beauty which gives me joy, makes me drunk as with wine, blind with insatiable desire....”