“Eve; although, she did not call herself by that name, I believe,” returned the blue-eyed girl. “So far as I can see, the new woman is just like all the rest of us—she wants to get everything she can out of the world, and give as little as possible in return.”
“And it is perfectly natural that she should,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “The only way we can make the men give us what we really want, is by asking for a great deal more, so that they will think themselves lucky if we compromise on what we originally decided to have.”
“Hear! hear!” said the girl with the Roman nose, making an entry into her note-book, “I’ve been acting on that theory all my life, but I never thought to formulate it.”
“Pardon me for the suggestion,” said the president, “but I hope you are not in the habit of leaving that note-book around where any man can see it.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference if I did, dear. I went to such a fashionable school that no one but myself can ever read my chirography—I can’t myself, if it was written long enough ago for me to have quite forgotten what I said.”
“Then, you needn’t be uneasy about any old love letters which have not been returned,” said the brown-eyed blonde.
“Not at all. Nobody could tell whether I had written a promise of undying affection or a recipe for hair tonic.”
“I do wish my father had sent me to the same school,” said the brown-eyed blonde, sorrowfully.
“Pshaw, old letters don’t tell half as many tales as old photographs,” said the girl with the eyeglasses, sighing. “I know a girl who had been engaged to a man who returned everything she had given him except one photograph. She couldn’t refuse to let him keep it when he begged so hard.”
“He had probably lost it, and didn’t know how to account for its absence,” said the president.