“You mean she grieves?”

“Quite the contrary. But marriage brands.”

“You speak bitterly—yet you have no personal experience.”

“No, I was never tempted.”

Her frank brusquerie made him feel an old acquaintance.

“I cannot believe it,” he said, with a smile.

“Oh, if you call a proposal a temptation! I call it a bare hook.”

“You’re a man-hater, I see.”

“A woman-hater, if you will. Man I adore.”

“I don’t understand you,” he confessed again.