“They always do,” she assured me gravely.
And at that instant I knew the first ridiculous pang of jealousy; but I laughed it away and retorted:
“It was an ancient Chinese philosopher who is first recorded as having said, what doubtlessly the cave men before him gibbered, namely, that a woman pursues a man by fluttering away in advance of him.”
“Wretch!” she cried. “I never fluttered. When did I ever flutter!”
“It is a delicate subject . . . ” I began with assumed hesitancy.
“When did I ever flutter?” she demanded.
I availed myself of one of Schopenhauer’s ruses by making a shift.
“From the first you observed nothing that a female could afford to miss observing,” I charged. “I’ll wager you knew as quickly as I the very instant when I first loved you.”
“I knew the first time you hated me,” she evaded.
“Yes, I know, the first time I saw you and learned that you were coming on the voyage,” I said. “But now I repeat my challenge. You knew as quickly as I the first instant I loved you.”