If man only knew how heavily a flouted woman, after she has safely won him, does make him pay for his bad taste, he would be more careful. But Artie never knew. He sat there, listening to the biting words which passed back and forth between Flora and Cary, without his modesty permitting him to realize that he was the stake these two clever girls were throwing mental dice for. But Jimmie knew, for his blue eyes turned black, and his cigarettes burned out in two puffs, and his nervous hands clenched and unclenched in his wicked wish to say something to aggravate the affair. Finally, meeting my derisive grin, he wrenched my little finger under the table, under pretence of picking up my handkerchief, and whispered: "Oh, Lord, give me strength to keep out of this row!" I laughed, of course, and so missed something, for the next thing I heard, the conversation had become more personal, and Flora was saying: "Love is an acquisition. The more you have, the more you want." "Pardon me," said Cary. "To my mind, love is a sacrifice. Yet the more you give, the more you gain." "But I don't want to believe that!" pouted Flora, charmingly. "That is a cruel, ascetic conception of love. It makes me shiver, like reading the New Testament." For the first time Artie spoke. "You prefer, then, the Song of Solomon?" And the Angel brought his hand down on the table a little heavily, and looked at me. "Yes, I do!" laughed Flora, thinking she had scored. "And I know--because I have loved!" "You have loved, have you?" said Cary, leaning forward to look at her across Artie's tucked shirt-front. "Then if you have, truly and deeply, as a woman can, when she meets the man who is her mate, can you jest so lightly about love being an acquisition? Are you thinking of his income and what he can give you more than your father has been able to do? Does your idea of marriage consist of dinner-parties and routs? Or do you think of the man himself? Of his noble qualities of heart and mind? Does not the idea of permanent prosperity sometimes fade, and in its place do you not sometimes see the man you love, poor, neglected by his friends, and jeered by his enemies? Does he not sometimes appear to you stretched on a weary bed of sickness? Can you picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter? If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not his strength to love? Would you still count yourself a blessed woman if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth loving like that?" Flora quailed, and drew back, abashed and a little frightened, but Artie's face was a study. At a sign from Aubrey, I looked at Mrs. Jimmie and rose. Just behind me, as I turned, I heard Artie whisper to Cary: "Tell me, have _you_ ever loved like that?" And Cary's murmured reply: "Not yet, but--I could."