"Vapid, flabby, childish, and innocent as a baby."
"Innocent I am sure she is. Vapid and flabby she certainly is not. She is full of fun, and is quite as witty as a woman should be."
"You always liked fools, Jack."
"Then how did I come to be so very fond of you." In answer to this she merely made a grimace at him. "I hadn't known her three days," continued he, "before I began to feel how impossible it would be to say anything to her that ought not to be said."
"That is just like the world all over," said Mrs. Houghton. "When a man really falls in love with a woman he always makes her such a goddess that he doesn't dare to speak to her. The effect is that women are obliged to put up with men who ain't in love with them,—either that, or vouchsafe to tell their own little story,—when, lo, they are goddesses no longer."
"I dare say it's very ridiculous," said Jack, in a mooning despondent way. "I dare say I'm not the man I ought to be after the advantages I have had in such friends as you and others."
"If you try to be severe to me, I'll quarrel with you."
"Not severe at all. I'm quite in earnest. A man, and a woman too, have to choose which kind of role shall be played. There is innocence and purity, combined with going to church and seeing that the children's faces are washed. The game is rather slow, but it lasts a long time, and leads to great capacity for digesting your dinner in old age. You and I haven't gone in for that."
"Do you mean to say that I am not innocent?"
"Then there is the Devil with all his works,—which I own are, for the most part, pleasant works to me. I have always had a liking for the Devil."