"You see," I explained, turning my empty pipe over and over, rather aimlessly, "when I make a horseshoe I take a piece of iron and, having heated it, I bend and shape it, and with every hammer-stroke I see it growing into what I would have it—I am sure of it, from start to finish; now, with a woman it is—different."
"You mean that you cannot bend, and shape her, like your horseshoe?" still without looking towards me.
"I mean that—that I fear I should never be quite sure of a—woman, as
I am of my horseshoe."
"Why, you see," said Charmian, beginning to braid the tress of hair, "a woman cannot, at any time, be said to resemble a horseshoe—very much, can she?"
"Surely," said I, "surely you know what I mean—?"
"There are Laura and Beatrice and Helen and Aspasia and Phryne, and hosts of others," said Charmian, nodding to the moon again. "Oh, yes—our blacksmith has read of so many women in books that he has no more idea of women out of books than I of Sanscrit."
And, in a little while, seeing I was silent, she condescended to glance towards me:
"Then I suppose, under the circumstances, you have never been—in love?"
"In love?" I repeated, and dropped my pipe.
"In love."