Not one in a thousand cared for the society of women, or even of one particular woman, for its own sake, for the companionship, and the exchange of ideas about things of which women know how to think.

To the better sort, that is, to the sentimental ones, a woman always seemed what she was not, a goddess, a saint, or a sort of glorified sister; to the rest, she was an instrument of amusement and pleasure, more or less necessary and more or less purchasable.

Perhaps an Englishman or an American, judging Greeks from what he could learn about them in ordinary intercourse, would get about as near the truth as Logotheti did.

In his main conclusion the latter was probably right; Mr.Van Torp's affections might be of such exuberant nature as would admit of being divided between two or three objects at the same time, or they might not.

But when he spoke of having the 'highest regard' for Madame Cordova, without denying the facts about the interview in which he had asked her to marry him and had lost his head because she refused, he was at least admitting that he was in love with her, or had been at that time.
Mr.Van Torp also confessed that he had entertained a 'high regard' for the beautiful Mrs.Bamberger, now unhappily insane.