“But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties have sown their wild oats already. That’s like scarlatina—�one has to go through it and get it over.”

“Then they ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.”

“I was in love in my young days with a deacon,” said the Princess Myakaya. “I don’t know that it did me any good.”

“No; I imagine, joking apart, that to know love, one must make mistakes and then correct them,” said Princess Betsy.

“Even after marriage?” said the ambassador’s wife playfully.

“‘It’s never too late to mend.’” The attache repeated the English proverb.