'
She laughed colloquially, to fill a pause. It had not been coquetry:
merely the woman unconsciously at play. A man is bound to remember the
seniority of his years when this occurs, for a veteran of ninety and a
worn out young debauchee will equally be subject to it if they do not
shun the society of the sex. My long robust health and perfect
self-reliance apparently tend to give me unguarded moments, or lay me
open to fitful impressions. Indeed there are times when I fear I have the
heart of a boy, and certainly nothing more calamitous can be conceived,
supposing that it should ever for one instant get complete mastery of my
head. This is the peril of a man who has lived soberly. Do we never know
when we are safe? I am, in reflecting thereupon, positively prepared to
say that if there is no fool like what they call an old fool (and a man
in his prime, who can be laughed at, is the world's old fool) there is
wisdom in the wild oats theory, and I shall come round to my nephew's way
of thinking: that is, as far as Master Charles by his acting represents
his thinking.
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