Nevertheless it is a strange fact that the resemblance between the heart of an experienced, adventurous bachelor of fifty and the simple heart of a girl of nineteen is stronger than girls of nineteen imagine; especially when the bachelor of fifty is sitting solitary and unfriended at two o'clock in the night, in the forlorn atmosphere of a house that has outlived its hopes.

Bachelors of fifty alone will comprehend me.
It has never been decided what young girls do meditate upon when they meditate; young girls themselves cannot decide.

As a rule the lonely fancies of middle-aged bachelors are scarcely less amenable to definition.

But the case of the inhabitant of the puce dressing-gown was an exception to the rule.

He knew, and he could have said, precisely what he was thinking about.