He began to laugh, caught her hands, and kissed her:
"Little goose, that was all impromptu and horribly trite and commonplace. Only it was new to me because I never before took the trouble to consider it. But it's true, even if it is trite. People love or they don't love, and a regard for ethics controls only what they do about it."
"That's another Tupperesque truism, isn't it, dear?"
"Sure thing. Who am I to mock at the Proverbial One when I've never yet evolved anything better?… Listen; you don't want me to marry Stephanie, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't. You think you do—"
"I do, I do, Louis! She's the sweetest, finest, most generous, most suitable—"
"Sure," he said, hastily, "she's all that except 'suitable'—and she isn't that, and I'm not, either. For the love of Mike, Lily, let me go on admiring her, even loving her in a perfectly harmless—"
"It isn't harmless to caress a girl—"
"Why—you can't call it caressing—"