"Well, Ida, now I want to ask you, didn't you think he acted as if——"
"As if he were in love with you, you would say."
"Well—yes."
"He certainly did, if I am any judge of symptoms; but then, dear, men are often in love with women they don't mean to marry."
"Who wants to marry him, I should like to know? I'm not thinking of that."
"Well, then, Eva, perhaps he has discovered that he wants to marry you; and, perhaps, for some reason he regards that as impossible, and so is going to try to keep away."
"How perfectly hateful and stupid of him! I'd rather never have seen him."
"A man generally has this advantage over a woman in a matter of this sort, that he has an object in life which is more to him than anything else, and he can fill his whole mind with that."
"Well, Ida, that's all very true, but what object in life can a girl have who lives as we do; who has everything she can want without an effort—I for instance."