"Perfectly; the fact is, my sweet Fanny, I never was anything else but satisfied with you! I always was fascinated with you."
"That's one of the things which you were taught at college, I suppose."
"What?"
"Making pretty speeches."
"No, they didn't teach that, by Jove! Nothing but wretched Latin, Greek and Mathematics—things, evidently, of far less importance than the art you mention."
"Oh! of course."
"And the reason is plain. A gentleman never uses the one after he leaves college, and lays them by with the crabbed books that teach them; while the art of compliment is always useful and agreeable—especially agreeable to young ladies of your exceedingly juvenile age—is't not?"
"Very agreeable."
"I know it is; and when a woman descends to it, and flatters a man—ah! my dear Fanny, there's no hope for him. I am a melancholy instance."
"You!" laughed Fanny, who had regained her good-humor.