"Have girls a flavor?"
"Some of them have—perhaps most of them haven't; neither have they form nor feature, nor tint nor texture, nor anything that appeals to a fellow of taste and sentiment."
"I'm sorry for these girls of yours——"
"You needn't be sorry for the girls; they are not my girls, and not one of them ever will be mine if I can help it——"
"Oh, indeed!"
"They are nothing to me, and I'm nothing to them; but they are just—they are just the formless sort of thing that a formless sort of fellow always marries; they help to fill up the world, you know."
"Yes, they help to fill a world that is overfull already. Poor Mama and Eugene don't know how full it is. When Gene wants to sell a picture and can't, he thinks it's a desert island."
"Probably they could live on a desert island and be perfectly happy and content," said Paul.
"Of course they could; the only trouble would be that unless some one called them at the proper hours they'd forget to eat—and some day they'd be found dead locked in their last embrace."
"How jolly!"