"I am not sure that the lady was so frivolous," said Edgar thoughtfully. "Probably she was sick to death of the adulation of empty-headed and empty-hearted courtiers, and wanted to prove to herself and to the assembled court that this particular knight really cared for her. In which case the deep called unto shallow indeed; but the lady was the deep and the knight the shallow."
"I do not agree with you at all," answered Paul rather hotly, "she was vain and frivolous, and wanted to make the other women jealous by showing off the devotion of her young man. And I'd see a woman at Jericho before I'd make an exhibition of my love for her to excite the envy of her rivals."
"Gently, my young friend," said Edgar with his pleasant smile. "If you really loved a woman you'd give her your heart out and out; and whether she cherished it or played with it would be her concern, not yours."
"But no nice woman would want to play with it," remarked Joanna.
"I don't see that," replied Edgar. "Even nice women have their little vanities, and like to prove the extent of their power over men. Besides, if one really loved a woman, one would go on loving her just the same, even if she did the things that one did not consider nice; of course one would hate the things, but that would make no difference in loving the woman."
"Oh! yes, it would," cried Paul. "I should leave off loving a woman at; once if she did things that I did not approve of. I don't say that it would not hurt at the time; but the wrench of thrusting her out of my life then and there would not hurt half so much in the long run as letting her go on withering up my affections and knocking down my ideals. In the former case I should lose her and keep myself; in the latter I should lose both myself and her."
"But, my dear fellow, you wouldn't bother about yourself; you'd only know that you could not afford to lose the woman; so you would rescue her glove from the lions and then button it for her."
"Not I! I should teach her a lesson and then have done with her."
Edgar laughed. "My good Paul, who wants to teach women lessons? You talk as if they were schoolboys, and you really are old enough to know better."
"But do you mean to say, Edgar," asked Joanna, "that you would let any woman make a plaything or a door-mat of you?"