"What are you listening for!" she asked him once.
He answered her with a puzzle.
"For the Lorelei's song," he said, and going to the piano he sang it, his clear, plaintive tenor still retaining its power to make her nose smart and the dumb chills to run up and down her back. She was sitting near the piano and when he was through, he turned around on the bench.
"Have you ever been the least bit sorry," he asked, "that you turned me down—for a business career?"
"I didn't turn you down," she said. "We couldn't agree on certain things: that's all."
"On what, for instance?"
"That love is the one great thing in life, for instance. You always said it was—especially to a girl. And I always said there were other things in a woman's life, too—that love shouldn't monopolize her any more than it does a man."
"You were wrong, Mary, and you know you were wrong."
"I was right, Wally, and you know I was right. Because, don't you see?—if love is the only thing in life, and love fails, a person's whole life is in ruins—and that isn't fair—"
"It's true, though," he answered, more to himself than to her. Again he unconsciously assumed a listening attitude, as one who is trying to catch a sound from afar.