“The girl likes him pretty well, and her people approve of him, and all that, you know.”
“That simplifies the problem,” said the philosopher, nodding again.
“But she’s not in—in love with him, you know. She doesn’t really care for him—much. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. It is a most natural state of mind.”
“Well then, suppose that there’s another man—what are you writing?”
“I only put down (B)—like that,” pleaded the philosopher, meekly exhibiting his note-book.
She looked at him in a sort of helpless exasperation, with just a smile somewhere in the background of it.
“Oh, you really are—” she exclaimed. “But let me go on. The other man is a friend of the girl’s: he’s very clever—oh, fearfully clever—and he’s rather handsome. You needn’t put that down.”
“It is certainly not very material,” admitted the philosopher, and he crossed out ‘handsome’; ‘clever’ he left.
“And the girl is most awfully—she admires him tremendously; she thinks him just the greatest man that ever lived, you know. And she—she—” The girl paused.