"Going to try a 'Comic'?" the Poet suggested pleasantly.
The Political Economist ignored the impertinence. "I am reasonably well off," he continued meditatively, "and I'm reasonably good-looking, and I've contributed eleven articles on 'Men and Women' to modern economic literature, but it's dawned on me all of a sudden that in spite of all my beauteous theories regarding life in general, I am just one big shirk when it comes to life in particular."
The Poet put down his pen and pushed aside his bottle of rhyming fluid, and began to take notice.
"Whom are you going to fall in love with?" he demanded.
The Political Economist sank back into his chair.
"I don't quite know," he added simply, "but she's going to be some tired girl. Whatever else she may or may not be, she's got to be a tired girl."
"A tired girl?" scoffed the Poet. "That's no kind of a girl to marry. Choose somebody who's all pink and white freshness. That's the kind of a girl to make a man happy."
The Political Economist smiled a bit viciously behind his cigar.
"Half an hour ago," he affirmed, "I was a beast just like you. Good Heavens! Man," he cried out suddenly, "did you ever see a girl cry? Really cry, I mean. Not because her manicure scissors jabbed her thumb, but because her great, strong, tyrant, sexless brain had goaded her poor little woman-body to the very cruelest, last vestige of its strength and spirit. Did you ever see a girl like that Miss Gaudette upstairs—she's the Artist, you know, who did those cartoons last year that played the devil itself with 'Congress Assembled'—did you ever see a girl like that just plain thrown down, tripped in her tracks, sobbing like a hurt, tired child? Your pink and white prettiness can cry like a rampant tragedy-queen all she wants to over a misfitted collar, but my hand is going here and now to the big-brained girl who cries like a child!"
"In short," interrupted the Poet, "you are going to help—Miss Gaudette sail her boat?"