errand without further words.

XV.

Paul stayed at the hotel until a late hour, and went home, feeling
lighter at heart than he had felt for many days. He was in love, and the
passion had a very salutary effect upon his nature. His heart had been
crushed down when he was a child, until he doubted whether he had any
heart at all. His early sufferings had hardened his nature, and his cool
strong mind had approved the process, so that he was well satisfied with
his solitary condition and his loveless life. He had seen much of the
world, and had known many women of all nations, but his immovable
indifference was proverbial among his colleagues, and if he had ever
entertained a passing fancy for any one, the fact was unknown to gossip.
It might be supposed that this very coldness would have rendered him
attractive to women, for it is commonly said, and with some truth, that
they are sometimes drawn to those men who show them no manner of
attention. But I think that the case is not always the same, and admits
of very subtle distinctions. It is not a man's coldness that attracts a
woman, but the belief that, though he is cold to others, he may soften
towards herself; and this belief often rests on mere vanity, and often
on the truth of the supposition. There are many men who systematically
affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in
the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray
at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman
whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and
with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from
a distance, to see if they can detect the slightest softening of manner
towards other women; and when they have convinced themselves that they
alone have the power to influence the frozen nature they admire, they
very easily fall wholly in love. In general a man who is very cold and
indifferent is not to be trusted. The chances are ten to one that he is
playing the old and time-honored part for a definite purpose.

But there are those who play no part, nor need to affect any
characteristic not theirs. When women find out that a man is really
indifferent to all women, their disgust knows no bounds. So long as he
is known to have loved any one in the past, or to love any one in the
present, or to be even likely to love any one in the future, he may be
pardoned. But if it is firmly beli