"Do you believe that hearts break?" asked Leith, mockingly.
"Not the heart of the 'new woman,'" answered Jessica, laughing. "She is too familiar with the genus homo."
"The 'new woman' has no heart. She is all brain."
"Then you acknowledge that woman has, until recently, had a 'corner on heart,' so to speak, and that man for all time has been without one, being a creature simply of brain?"
"Did I say so?"
"Practically, as the 'new woman' is only taking her place in the front walks as man's intellectual companion."
"Perhaps you are right; I don't know. It seems to me sometimes as if men, and women, too, would be better off without hearts. It has caused more sin than it ever prevented a thousand times, and has created more misery than happiness a million to one. For my own part, if I could dispense with the very necessary organ, it would give me the greatest relief possible."
"Does that mean that you are in love, Pierrepont?" questioned Redfield Ash, with his mouth rather too full of food to be altogether intelligible.
"Did there ever live a man worthy of the name who was not in love?" returned Leith, gallantly. "I love all women."