"Do you think that any two understand the same thing when they speak of love?" she asked.
"We two might," he answered, resuming his indifferent tone. "After all, we have talked so much together during the last month that we ought to understand each other."
"Yes," said Maria Consuelo. "And I think we do," she added thoughtfully.
"Then why should we think differently about the same thing? But I am not going to try and define love. It is not easily defined, and I am not clever enough." He laughed again. "There are many illnesses which I cannot define—but I know that one may have them twice."
"There are others which one can only have once—dangerous ones, too."
"I know it. But that has nothing to do with the argument."
"I think it has—if this is an argument at all."
"No. Love is not enough like an illness—it is quite the contrary. It is a recovery from an unnatural state—that of not loving. One may fall into that state and recover from it more than once."
"What a sophism!"
"Why do you say that? Do you think that not to love is the normal condition of mankind?"