little in the opposite
direction.'

'I haven't much faith in marrying for love, as you know. What's more,
I believe it's the very rarest thing for people to be in love with each
other. Reardon and his wife perhaps were an instance; perhaps--I'm
not quite sure about her. As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild
preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened
into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the
same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't
repulsive.'

'The same kind of feeling; but there's vast difference of degree.'

'To be sure. I think it's only a matter of degree. When it rises to the
point of frenzy people may strictly be said to be in love; and, as I
tell you, I think that comes to pass very rarely indeed. For my own
part, I have no experience of it, and think I never shall have.'

'I can't say the same.'

They laughed.

'I dare say you have imagined yourself in love--or really been so for
aught I know--a dozen times. How the deuce you can attach any importance
to such feeling where marriage is concerned I don't understand.'

'Well, now,' said Whelpdale, 'I have never upheld the theory--at least
not since I was sixteen--that a man can be in love only once, or that
there is one particular woman if he misses whom he can never be happy.
There may be thousands of women whom I could love with equal sincerity.'

'I object to the word "love" altogether. It has been vulgarised. Let us
talk about compatibility. Now, I should say that, no doubt, and speaking
scientifically, there is one particular woman supremely fitted to
each man. I put aside consideration of circumstances; we know that
circumstances will disturb any degree of abstract fitness. But in the
nature of things there must be one woman whose nature is specially well
adapted to harmonise with mine, or with yours. If there were any means
of discovering this woman in each case, then I have no doubt it would
be worth a man's utmost effort to do so, and any amount of erotic
jubilation would be reasonable when the discovery was made. But
the thing is impossible, and, what's more, we know what ridiculous
fallibility people display when they imagine they have found the best
substitute for that indiscoverable. This is what makes me impatient with
sentimental talk about marriage. An educated man mustn't play so into
the hands of ironic destiny. Let him think he wants to marry a wom