Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/77



A ROCHEFOUCAULD has said that prudence and love are inconsistent. May Nuttall, who had never explored the philosophies of La Rochefoucauld, had nevertheless seen that quotation in the birthday book of an acquaintance, and the saying had made a great impression upon her. She was twenty-one years of age, at which age girls are most impressionable and are little influenced by the workings of pure reason. They are prepared to take their philosophies ready-made, and not disinclined to accept from others certain rigid standards by which they measure their own elastic temperaments. Frank Merrill was at once a comfort and the cause of a certain half-ashamed resentment, since she was of the age which resents