espect _ces dames_ infinitely
it's because they will be acting according to the highest wisdom of
their sex. That's the sort of thing women do for a man--the sort of
thing they invent when they're exceptionally good and clever. When
they're not they don't do so well; but it's not for want of trying.
There's only one thing in the world better than their incomparable
charm: it's their abysmal conscience. Deep calleth unto deep--the one's
indeed a part of the other. And when they club together, when they
earnestly consider, as in the case we're supposing," Nash continued,
"then the whole thing takes a lift; for it's no longer the virtue of the
individual, it's that of the wondrous sex."

"You're so remarkable that, more than ever, I must paint you," Nick
returned, "though I'm so agitated by your prophetic words that my hand
trembles and I shall doubtless scarcely be able to hold my brush. Look
how I rattle my easel trying to put it into position. I see it all there
just as you show it. Yes, it will be a droll day, and more modern than
anything yet, when the conscience of women makes out good reasons for
men's not being in love with them. You talk of their goodness and
cleverness, and it's certainly much to the point. I don't know what else
they themselves might do with those graces, but I don't see what man can
do with them but be fond of them where he finds them."

"Oh you'll do it--you'll do it!" cried Nash, brightly jubilant.

"What is it I shall do?"

"Exactly what I just said; if not next year then the year after, or the
year after that. You'll go halfway to meet her and she'll drag you about
and pass you off. You'll paint the bishops and become a social
institution. That is, you'll do it if you don't take great care."

"I shall, no doubt, and that's why I cling to you. You must still look
after me," Nick went on. "Don't melt away into a mere improbable
reminiscence, a delightful, symbolic fable--don't if you can possibly
help it. The trouble is, you see, that you can't really keep hold very
tight, because at bottom it will amuse you much more to see me in
another pickle than to find me simply jogging down the vista of the
years on the straight course. Let me at any rate have some sort of
sketch of you as a kind of feather from the angel's wing or a photograph
of the ghost--to prove to me in the future that you were once a solid
sociable fact, that I didn't invent you, didn't launch you as a deadly
hoax. Of cours