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164 quietly to Constance for a moment, without having to run after her downstairs, to the store-room, he would say, sadly:

"I? I'm an old bachelor, an old boy. I'm a typical old bachelor."

"You ought to get married, Paul," she said, one day.

He gave a violent start:

"Constance," he said, "if ever you try to lay a trap for me, I swear I'll run away and you shall never set eyes on me again! . . . Where should I find a wife who would be as tidy as I? And then I'm so difficult to please that the poor child would have a terrible life of it. . . . Sometimes, yes, sometimes I do cherish the illusion . . . of marriage with a very young girl, one whom I could train according to my ideas, my philosophy, my ideas and philosophy of purity . . . of which the loftiest is the idea of purity in soul and life. . . ."

"That's a regular old bachelor's idea, Paul: getting married to a very young girl, training her in your ideas. A fine woman of thirty or over: that's better."

"As old as that!" exclaimed Paul.

"A woman of thirty is not old for a man of forty-six."

"No, Constance, don't trouble your head. Marriage is a desperate affair. No, it's a good thing that I never got married. . . . But I do feel lonely sometimes. I'm glad I came to live here. . . . It's you who are providing, the family-picture now. . . . Poor Mamma! She still knows me quite well. But she thinks that I am still very, very young. . . . Yes, the family-picture is with you now, not on Sunday evenings, but every day of the week. . . . Now that I'm growing old, I feel myself becoming more pastoral than I used to be. Do you