“But,” and he gazed on Richard intently, “it is given to very few to meet them on the threshold—­I may say, to none.  We find them after hard buffeting, and usually, when we find the one fitted for us, our madness has misshaped our destiny, our lot is cast.  For women are not the end, but the means, of life.  In youth we think them the former, and thousands, who have not even the excuse of youth, select a mate—­or worse—­with that sole view.  I believe women punish us for so perverting their uses.  They punish Society.”

The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind travelled into consequences.

‘Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an earnest teacher,’ says The Pilgrim’s Scrip; and Sir Austin, in schooling himself to speak with moderation of women, was beginning to get a glimpse of their side of the case.

Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood.

Cold Blood said, “It is a passion coming in the order of nature, the ripe fruit of our animal being.”

Hot Blood felt:  “It is a divinity!  All that is worth living for in the world.”

Cold Blood said:  “It is a fever which tests our strength, and too often leads to perdition.”

Hot Blood felt:  “Lead whither it will, I follow it.”

Cold Blood said:  “It is a name men and women are much in the habit of employing to sanctify their appetites.”

Hot Blood felt:  “It is worship; religion; life!”

And so the two parallel lines ran on.

The baronet became more personal: 

“You know my love for you, my son.  The extent of it you cannot know; but you must know that it is something very deep, and—­I do not wish to speak of it—­but a father must sometimes petition for gratitude, since the only true expression of it is his son’s moral good.  If you care for my love, or love me in return, aid me with all your energies to keep you what I have made you, and guard you from the snares besetting you.  It was in my hands once.  It is ceasing to be so.  Remember, my son, what my love is.  It is different, I fear, with most fathers:  but I am bound up in your welfare:  what you do affects me vitally.  You will take no step that is not intimate with my happiness, or my misery.  And I have had great disappointments, my son.”

So far it was well.  Richard loved his father, and even in his frenzied state he could not without emotion hear him thus speak.

Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never could see when he was winning the battle, thought proper in his wisdom to water the dryness of his sermon with a little jocoseness, on the subject of young men fancying themselves in love, and, when they were raw and green, absolutely wanting to be—­that most awful thing, which the wisest and strongest of men undertake in hesitation and after self-mortification and penance—­ married!  He sketched the Foolish Young Fellow—­the object of general