If plain speaking be a sign of friendship, then women are assuredly
capable of higher flights than men. A lifelong friendship between two
women usually means that they quarrelled at school, and have retained
in later days the privilege of mutual plain speaking. If Jones, who was
Tompkins's best man, goes yachting with Tompkins in later days, these
two sinners are quite capable of enjoying themselves immensely in the
present without raking about among the ashes of the past to seek the
reason why Tompkins persisted, in spite of his friends' advice, in
making an idiot of himself over that Robinson girl--Jones standing by
all the while with the ring in his waistcoat pocket. Whereas, if the
friendship existed between the respective ladies of Jones and Tompkins,
their conversation will usually be found to begin with: "I always told
you, Maria, when we were girls together," or, "Well, Jane, when we were
at school you never would listen to me." A man's friendship is
apparently based upon a knowledge of another's redeeming qualities. A
woman's dearest friend is she whose faults will bear the closest
investigation.
It was doubtless owing to these trifling variations in temperament that
Joan Ferriby learnt more about The Hague and Percy Roden and Otto von
Holzen, and lastly, though not leastly, Mrs. Vansittart, in ten minutes
than Tony Cornish could have learnt in a month of patient
investigation.
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