He could not mistake the set of the
girl's mind. Not only did brother call to sister, but youth called to
youth. Whereat the goad of his forty-nine years pricked him shrewdly.
He must accept the disabilities of the three decades, plus one year,
which divided him in age from Damaris, as final; and range himself with
the elder generation--her father's generation, in short. How, after
all, could he in decency go to his old friend and say: "Give me your
daughter." The thing, viewed thus, became outrageous, offensive not
only to his sense of fitness, but of the finer and more delicate
moralities. For cradle-snatching is not, it must be conceded, a
graceful occupation; nor is a middle-aged man with a wife still in her
teens a graceful spectacle. Sentimentalists may maunder over it in
pinkly blushing perversity; but the naughty world thinks otherwise,
putting, if not openly its finger to its nose, at least secretly its
tongue in its cheek. And rightly, as he acknowledged. The implication
may be coarse, libidinous; but the instinct producing it is a sound
one, both healthy and just.
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