“That I propose to do, but delicately and without any guitar music. Love is a very sacred thing to me.”
“And the man who talks much about his love generally hasn't any,” I suggested.
“At least, if he has any love in him the cheapest way of showing it is by talk and song.”
“It's so awful easy to make words lie,” I agreed.
“If she wants me to enter a lying-match with these Romeos I'll agree, but only on condition that it's a lying-match—that we're only playing a game. I won't try to deceive her. Women are not fools or playthings any longer, are they?
“Generally not, if they're born in America,” I agreed.
Here was the modem American lover, and I must acknowledge that I fell in love with him. He stood for honest loving—a new type of chivalry—and against the lying, romantic twaddle which had come down from the feudal world. That kind of thing had been a proper accessory of courts and concubines. It would not do for America.
“I see that I am putting the case in good hands. Go in and win it,” I said.
“I'll make it my business while I'm here,” said he.
“You're a born business man. I know it's fashionable to hate the word 'business,' but I like it. In love it looks for dividends of happiness.”