"Yes.... You mean that for us there is only this one chapter."
"Only one chapter."
"Or—might it not be called a short story, Mr. Smith?"
"Yes—one kind of short story."
"Which kind?"
"The kind that ends unhappily."
"But this one is not going to end unhappily, is it?"
"You are about to walk out of the story when it ends."
"Yes—but——" She bit her lip, flushed and perplexed, already dreadfully confused between the personal and the impersonal—between fact and fancy.
"You see," he said, "the short story which deals with—love—can end only as ours is going to end—or the contrary."