Never a squire of dames, he knew the part.

He had played the game occasionally in the capitals of Europe when there had been some information he had particularly desired.

Clever, scheming women, too.

A clever, passably good-looking elderly man could make himself peculiarly attractive to young women and women in the thirties.

Dazzlement for the young; the man who knew all about life, the trivial little courtesies a younger man generally forgot; the moving of chairs, the holding of wraps; the gray hairs which served to invite trust and confidence, which lulled the eternal feminine fear of the male.