 of a mild preference, encouraged by
circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of
all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for
almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.«
    »The same kind of feeling; but there's vast difference of degree.«
    »To be sure. I think it's only a matter of degree. When it rises to the
point of frenzy people may strictly be said to be in love; and, as I tell you, I
think that comes to pass very rarely indeed. For my own part, I have no
experience of it, and think I never shall have.«
    »I can't say the same.«
    They laughed.
    »I dare say you have imagined yourself in love - or really been so for aught
I know - a dozen times. How the deuce you can attach any importance to such
feeling where marriage is concerned I don't understand.«
    »Well, now,« said Whelpdale, »I have never upheld the theory - at least not
since I was sixteen - that a man can be in love only once, or that there is one
particular woman if he misses whom he can never be happy. There may be thousands
of women whom I could love with equal sincerity.«
    »I object to the word love altogether. It has been vulgarised. Let us talk
about compatibility. Now, I should say that, no doubt, and speaking
scientifically, there is one particular woman supremely fitted to each man. I
put aside consideration of circumstances; we know that circumstances will
disturb any degree of abstract fitness. But in the nature of things there must
be one woman whose nature is specially well adapted to harmonise with mine, or
with yours. If there were any means of discovering this woman in each case, then
I have no doubt it would be worth a man's utmost effort to do so, and any amount
of erotic jubilation would be reasonable when the discovery was made. But the
thing is impossible, and, what's more, we know what ridiculous fallibility
people display when they imagine they have found the best substitute for that
indiscoverable. This is what makes me impatient with sentimental talk about
marriage. An educated man mustn't play so into the hands of ironic destiny. Let
him think he wants to marry a woman; but don't let him exaggerate his feelings
or idealise their nature.«
    »There's a good deal in all that,« admitted Whelpdale, though
discontentedly.
