"Widowers--yes.

They miss so much--the habit of a house with a woman its mistress, the companionship, the order, oh, a thousand small but important things.

But a man who has remained a bachelor until he's thirty-four--that's a different case.

If he sets his heart at that age, seriously, for the first time on a woman and does not get her, that's the kind of man who, my experience suggests to me--I put it plainly, Margaret--will take one or more mistresses to himself but no wife." Mrs.Pettifer deferred to the worldly knowledge of her husband but she clung to her one clear argument.
"Nothing could be worse," she said frankly, "than that he should marry a guilty woman." "Granted, Margaret," replied Mr.Pettifer imperturbably.

"Only suppose that she's not guilty.