He was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.
For a long while after that I saw nothing of him.

Then, one evening, sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me in company that could hardly be called doubtful.
He flushed and came over to me.

"I've been an old woman for nearly six months," he said, with a laugh.

"I find I can't stand it any longer." "After all," he continued, "what is life for but to live?
It's only hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not.

And do you know"-- he leant across the table, speaking earnestly--"honestly and seriously, I'm a better man--I feel it and know it--when I am my natural self than when I am trying to be an impossible saint." That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes.