But he had only cared enough for society and its life to wish to see it now and then, and he fancied that he understood it at a glance--that it was all a sham and a glamour and vanity of vanities.

There was, of course, a potent reason for all this.
In his short peregrinations into the world of decorations and blue ribbons and cosmopolitan uniforms he had never come across a woman that interested him.

He had a holy reverence for woman in the abstract, but he had not met one to whom he could do homage as the type of the ideal womanhood he worshipped.

Perhaps he expected too much, or perhaps he judged too much by small and really insignificant signs.

As no man living or dead has ever understood any woman for five minutes at a time, he was not to be blamed.