George Gissing - The Odd Women

As he concluded, his eyes met those of Miss Nunn, and the latter suddenly spoke.

'Why will men marry fools?'

Barfoot was startled. He looked down into his plate, smiling.

'A most sensible question,' said the hostess, with a laugh. 'Why, indeed?'

'But a difficult one to answer,' remarked Everard, with his most restrained smile. 'Possibly, Miss Nunn, narrow social opportunity has something to do with it. They must marry some one, and in the case of most men choice is seriously restricted.'

'I should have thought,' replied Rhoda, elevating her eyebrows, 'that to live alone was the less of two evils.'

'Undoubtedly. But men like these two we have been speaking of haven't a very logical mind.'

Miss Barfoot changed the topic.

When, not long after, the ladies left him to meditate over his glass of wine, Everard curiously surveyed the room. Then his eyelids drooped, he smiled absently, and a calm sigh seemed to relieve his chest. The claret had no particular quality to recommend it, and in any case he would have drunk very little, for as regards the bottle his nature was abstemious.

'It is as I expected,' Miss Barfoot was saying to her friend in the drawing-room. 'He has changed very noticeably.'

'Mr. Barfoot isn't quite the man your remarks had suggested to me,' Rhoda replied.

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