_Bartlett._--"Oh, I know it's a stale kind." _Cummings._--"It's worse than stale. It's destructive. A man can soon talk himself out of heart with his better self. You can end by really being as sordid-minded and hopeless and low-purposed as you pretend to be. It's insanity." _Bartlett._--"Good! I've had my little knock on the head, you know. I don't deny being cracked. But I've a method in my madness." _Cummings._--"They all have. But it's a very poor method; and I don't believe you could say just what yours is. You think because a girl on whom you set your fancy--it's nonsense to pretend it was your heart--found out she didn't like you as well as she thought, and honestly told you so in good time, that your wisest course is to take up that rôle of misanthrope which begins with yourself and leaves people to imagine how low an opinion you have of the rest of mankind." _Bartlett._--"My dear fellow, you know I always speak well of that young lady. I've invariably told you that she behaved in the handsomest manner. She even expressed the wish--I distinctly remember being struck by the novelty of the wish at the time--that we should remain friends. You misconceive"-- _Cummings._--"How many poor girls have been jilted who don't go about doing misanthropy, but mope at home and sorrow and sicken over their wrong in secret,--a wrong that attacks not merely their pride, but their life itself. Take the case I was telling you of: did you ever hear of anything more atrocious? And do you compare this little sting to your vanity with a death-blow like that?"