She laughed, clapping her hands like a child.

“To be married, you mean? Oh! no! I shall never marry.”

He laughed with her, like a boy.

“Not if you fall terribly in love?”

“Not even then!” Her eyes shone defiantly. “I’ve made a promise to myself, and I won’t be a deserter.”

“A promise to yourself?”

“Yes, don’t you, sometimes?”

“No.”

“You should, or life would become too accidental; we would be terribly tossed about.”

“That’s what’s happening to me. I am looking for some occupation, but I don’t want to get into a treadmill. The people toil at business, pleasure—they do the same thing day after day, year after year. Life is a habit, a deadening monotony.”