"Well, you know that sirens don't care for people.... I've already been engaged two or three times.... I don't mind being engaged to you."
"Couldn't you care for me, Flavilla?"
"Why, yes. I do.... Please don't touch me; I'd rather not. Of course, you know, I couldn't really love you so quickly unless I'd been subjected to one of those Destyn-Carr machines. You know that, don't you? But," she added frankly, "I wouldn't like to have you get away from me. I--I feel like a tender-hearted person in the street who is followed by a lost cat----"
"What!"
"Oh, I didn't mean anything unpleasant--truly I didn't. You know how tenderly one feels when a poor stray cat comes trotting after one----"
He got up, mad all through.
"Are you offended?" she asked sorrowfully. "When I didn't mean anything except that my heart--which is rather impressionable--feels very warmly and tenderly toward the man who swam after me.... Won't you understand, please? Listen, we have been engaged only a minute, and here already is our first quarrel. You can see for yourself what would happen if we ever married."
"It wouldn't be machine-made bliss, anyway," he said.
That seemed to interest her; she inspected him earnestly.
"Also," he added, "I thought you desired to take a sportsman's chances?"