"I dare say you're right," answered Wade, "but when you love a woman, you sort of want to have a few trophies handy to throw down at her feet, if you see what I mean. You'd like to say, 'Look, I've done this and that! I've conquered here and there! I am Somebody!'"
"And if she didn't love you she'd turn up her nose at your trophies, and like as not walk off with the village fool."
"Well, but it seems to me that a woman isn't likely to love a man unless he has something to show besides a pocketbook."
"Mr. Herrick, there's just one reason why a woman loves a man, and that's because she loves him. You can invent all the theories you want, and you can write tons of poetry about it, and when you get through you'll be just where you started. You can find a reason for pretty near everything a woman does, though you may have to rack your brains like the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with this man and not with that. Perhaps you recall Longfellows's lines: 'The men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel and a mystery to the world.' Personally, I'm a bit of a fatalist regarding love. I think hearts are mated when they're fashioned, and when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they touch. It's as good a theory as any, for it can't be disproved."
"Then how account for unhappy marriages?" asked Wade.
"I said hearts were mated, not bodies and brains, nor livers, either. Half the unhappy marriages are due, I dare say, to bad livers."
"Well," laughed Wade, rising and finding his hat, "your theory sounds reasonable. As for me, I have no theory—nor data. So I'll go home and go to sleep. Don't forget Saturday night, Doctor."
"Saturday night? Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I'll not forget, you may depend. Good night, Mr. Herrick, and thank you for looking in on me. And—ah—Mr. Herrick?"
"Yes?"
"Ah—I wouldn't be too meek, if I were you. Even Fate may relish a little assistance. Good night. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a thunder storm before morning."