“Because it never can be. Men don't change their minds about one another often: they make it quite an event when they do, and talk about it as if something important had happened. But a girl only has to go down-town with a shoe-string unfastened, and every man who sees her will change his mind about her. Don't you know that's true?”

“Not of myself, I think.”

“There!” she cried. “That's precisely what every man in the world would say!”

“So you wouldn't trust me?”

“Well—I'll be awfully worried if you give 'em a chance to tell you that I'm too lazy to tie my shoe-strings!”

He laughed delightedly. “Is that what they do say?” he asked.

“Just about! Whatever they hope will get results.” She shook her head wisely. “Oh, yes; we do that here!”

“But I don't mind loose shoe-strings,” he said. “Not if they're yours.”

“They'll find out what you do mind.”

“But suppose,” he said, looking at her whimsically; “suppose I wouldn't mind anything—so long as it's yours?”