“Ef some men knowed themselves they’d be ashamed o’ the acquaintance,” opined Ezra. “An’ most women would. No, sir, I don’t take no stock in ’em. There ain’t nothin’ certain about love but the uncertainty. Women ain’t satisfied with the milk o’ human kindness. They want all the cream. What they expect is a sealskin livin’ on a mushrat salary. Love’s a kind of paralysis—kind of a stroke, like. Sometimes it’s only on one side an’ there’s hope. But ef it gits on both sides, it’s hopeless.”
“Like Tophet! It only makes folks’ heads spin, an’ they _think_ the world’s goin’ ’round, that’s all. Nobody knows the value of a gold-mine or a woman, but millions o’ men has went busted, tryin’ to find out! Not fer me, this here lovin’, sir,” Ezra continued with eloquence. “I never yet see a matrimonial match struck but what somebody got burned. Marriage is the end o’ trouble, as the feller says—but which end? I ask you!”
“You needn’t ask _me_, Ezra; I’m no authority on women. There’s a nice little proverb in this book, though, that you ought to know.”
“Here, I’ll find it for you.” Hal turned a few pages, paused, and read: “‘_Bounga sedap dipakey, layou dibouang._’”
“Sufferin’ snails! What _is_ that stuff, anyhow? Heathen Chinee?”
“That’s Malay, Ezra,” Hal condescended. The doctor, listening, felt a strange little shiver, as of some reminiscent fear from the vague long-ago. Those words, last heard at Batu Kawan, fifty years before, now of a sudden rose to him like specters of great evil. His attention strained itself as Hal went on:
“That’s a favorite Malay proverb, and it means: ‘While the flower is pleasing to man, he wears it. When it fades, he throws it away.’”
“Meanin’ a woman, o’ course? Uhuh! _I_ see. Well, them heathens has it pretty doggone nigh correct, at that, ain’t they? So that there is Malay, is it? All them twisty-wisty whirligigs? An’ you can read it same as if it was a real language?”
“It _is_ a real language, Ezra, and a very beautiful one. I love it. You don’t know how much!” A tone of real sincerity crept into the false camaraderie of Hal’s voice. Filhiol shook his head. Vague, incomprehensible influences seemed reaching out from the vapors of the Orient, fingering their way into the very heart of this trim New England garden, in this year of grace, 1918. The doctor suddenly felt cold. He crouched a little closer toward the blinds.