Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/102

 children I am after,” said I. “If that were the case, Miss Berrith, I should not be living in a marriage-proof Paradise.”

“What is it, then?” she asked.

“I’m not sure that I know,” I answered, somewhat lamely, as I was aware.

Miss Berrith looked at me suddenly, as she had done on the night of my “house-warning.”

“When you talk of Paradise,” she said, a little unevenly, “you remind me of Milton.”

“Why Milton?” I asked.

“By reason of a pitiful infirmity,” said she, and that was all I could get out of her. I suppose I had hurt her feelings by the energy of my expressions. There, again, you have an instance of the personal note in a woman. She has no conception of generalities.

“Sometimes I may seem a little bitter,” I ventured, “but, believe me, I’m not. Marriage is like a cold bath — beneficial to some men and fatal to others. I am one of the latter