“Yours can. Even your fluttering rags did that!”

She flushed: “Oh, if I were truly weak and silly enough to listen to you — — ”

“You never do. You give me no hope.”

“I do give you hope! I am ever ladling it out to you as they ladle soupaan to the militia! I say to you continually that never have I so devotedly loved any man — — ”

“That is not love!” I said, furious.

“I do not pretend it to be that same boiling and sputtering sentiment which men call love — — ”

“Then if it be not true love, why do you care what I whisper to any woman?”