"'Tis a good sign."
"Yes; a sign I am growing inane and respectable."
"I can imagine you one about as easily as the other."
"That is bitter-sweet; a compliment and a flout."
"If I had said that," Helen observed, smiling, "you would have retorted, with a look of gloomy solemnity, that most things in life are bitter-sweet; unless, indeed, you felt called upon to phrase it that it had the advantage of most earthly matters by not being wholly bitter."
"Was I ever guilty of such commonplace attempts at epigrams as that?" returned Arthur. "If so it is certainly a good thing that I have given up repartee for matrimony."
"Oh, that is brilliant beside many of your attempts, I assure you. And as for your giving them up—I reserve my decision."
"You shall see, skeptic," he said lightly. "I expect to change the face of the whole world if necessary."
"It is a common error of ardent temperaments," she returned pleasantly, but with evident sincerity, "to assume that a state of feeling can change the world."
"But I must, I will," he began eagerly. Then the light died out of his face and he ended with a shrug.