He may have his doubts on scores of subjects: he may not be quite sure whether he ought to remain a Whig with Lord Russell, or go in for Odgerism and the ballot; he may be uncertain about Colenso, and have his misgivings about the Pentateuch; he may not be easy in his mind about the Russians in the East, or the Americans in the West; uncomfortable suspicions may cross him that the Volunteers are not as quick in evolution as the Zouaves, or that England generally does not sing 'Rule Britannia' so lustily as she used to do.

All these are possible misgivings, but that he should take such a plunge as matrimony, on other grounds than the perfect prudence and profit of the investment, could never occur to him.
As to the sinfulness of tampering with a girl's affections by what in slang is called 'spooning,' it was purely absurd to think of it.

You might as well say that playing sixpenny whist made a man a gambler.

And then, as to the spooning, it was _partie egale_, the lady was no worse off than the gentleman.

If there were by any hazard--and this he was disposed to doubt--'affections' at stake, the man 'stood to lose' as much as the woman.
But this was not the aspect in which the case presented itself, flirtation being, in his idea, to marriage what the preliminary canter is to the race--something to indicate the future, but so dimly and doubtfully as not to decide the hesitation of the waverer.
If, then, Walpole was never for a moment what mothers call serious in his attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi, he was not the less fond of her society; he frequented the places where she was likely to be met with, and paid her that degree of 'court' that only stopped short of being particular by his natural caution.