"Certainly not. I care nothing about anybody but Tom Beckett, but Laura says that such a marriage will simply mean a life of self-indulgent luxury, idleness, and pleasure. She says marriage is something loftier and nobler than pleasing one's self; that it ought to mean growth and development both to the man and the woman. She says that I should have no influence on Tom, and that I need somebody strong and serious to steady me. She says Tom and I would only frisk through life and leave the world no better or wiser than we found it. She even says" (and here she turned her face to the honeysuckles)--"I don't like to repeat it, but Laura is so advanced she makes my embarrassment seem simply idiotic--she even says that the children of such a union would be incurably light-minded and trivial; and oh, Zuleika, if one isn't a bit advanced in any way, doesn't it seem hard to keep from marrying somebody you love just for the good of a few frivolous children you've never seen in your life?" It was neither the place, the hour, nor the subject for laughter, but I forgot my neurasthenia and gave way to a burst of wholehearted mirth! Every second of time seemed to increase the unconscious humor of her point of view, and only fear of the nurse on duty in the corridor enabled me to control myself at all. "Have I been funny?" she asked delightedly, as she drew her head in the window. "I never can see my own jokes, but I'm glad to have amused you, only I did hope for a little sympathy. Everybody can't be Zenobias and Vashtis and Lauras, superior to common weaknesses!" "I do, I do sympathize," I said, wiping the tears of merriment from my eyes, "and I agree with you much more than with Laura. Now the 'other man' is, I suppose, all that is grave and reverend--a complete contrast to the too trivial Thomas?" "Yes, and he's as good as good can be; trustworthy, talented, honorable, everything; you know the kind? I never get on with them." "Does he love you?" "Laura thinks he does, but I've no reason to suppose so. We've always been friends, while Tom Beckett and I squabble and make up twice a week; but anyway, even if he doesn't adore me in Tom's silly way, Laura says I ought not to mind. She says it would be noble of me to help him to a splendid and prosperous career, and thinks I ought to remember how much my father wanted him for a son-in-law--you see he is awfully poor."