'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,—
'Tis woman's whole existence.'
Do you believe that?” He dwelt upon her with his tree look, in the happy embarrassment with which she let her head droop.
“I don't know,” she murmured. “I don't know anything about a man's life.”
“It was the woman's I was asking about.”
“I don't think I'm competent to answer.”
“Well, I'll tell you, then. I think Byron was mistaken. My experience is, that, when a man is in love, there's nothing else of him. That's the reason I've kept out of it altogether of late years. My advice is, don't fall in love: it takes too much time.” They both laughed at this. “But about corresponding, now; you haven't said whether you would write to me, or not. Will you?”
“Can't you wait and see?” she asked, slanting a look at him, which she could not keep from being fond.
“No, no. Unless you wrote to me I couldn't go to Chicago.”
“Perhaps I ought to promise, then, at once.”
“You mean that you wish me to go.”