"Oh, I admit that you like a woman--this one, perhaps, or that one. But it is the individual which interests you, and not the sex. For woman as woman--for woman because she is woman--you care little." "Mrs. Larue, it is a very singular charge. Now that you have brought it to my notice, I don't know but I must plead guilty, to some extent. You mean to say, I suppose, that I can't or won't fall in love with the first woman I come to, merely because she is handy." "That is precisely it, only you have phrased it rather grossly." "And do you charge it as a fault in my character?" "I avow that I do not regard it as so manly, so truly masculine, you comprehend, as the opposite trait." "Upon my honor!" exclaimed Colburne in amazement. "Then you must consider,--I beg your pardon--but it follows that Don Juan was a model man." "In my opinion he was. Excuse my frankness. I am older than you. I have seen much life. I have a right to philosophise. Just see here. It is intended for wise reasons that man should not leave woman alone; that he should seek after her constantly, and force himself upon her; that, losing one, he should find another. Therefore the man, who, losing one, chooses another, best represents his sex." She waited for a reply to her argument, but Colburne was too much crushed to offer one. He shirked his honest duty as an interlocutor by saying, "Mrs. Larue, this is a novel idea to me, and I must have time for consideration before I accept it." She laughed without a sign of embarrassment, and changed the subject.