"Mean it! I tell you, Diana, you women put it all over the lords of creation—or any lord ever created! Mean it! You bet I do, sweetness! I'll take back everything I ever said about women. They're the real thing in the world! And the best thing for the world is to let them run it!"
"But—dear——" she faltered, lifting her beautiful eyes to him, "if men are going to feel that way about it, we won't want to run anything at all. . . . It was only because you wouldn't let us that we wanted to."
He said in impassioned tones:
"Let the bally world run itself, Diana. What do we care—you and I?"
"No," she said, "we don't care now."
Then that rash and infatuated young man, losing his head entirely, drew from his jeans a large jack-knife, and, before she could prevent him, he had sliced off an enormous hunk of plum cake heavily frosted with his own words.
"Don't, dear!" she begged him. "I couldn't ask that of you——"
"I will!" he said, and bit into it.
"Don't!" she begged him; "please don't! I haven't had much experience with pastry. It may give you dreadful dreams!"
"Let it!" he said. "What do I care for dreams while you remain real! Diana—Diana—huntress of bigger game than ever fled through the age of fable!"