“My dear,” I said in a sort of paternal way, designed to palliate the effect of an intrusion, “for a moment I was tempted to think that you preferred a book to a man; but since you are not ardently reading I am giving myself so much of the benefit of the doubt as to take this chair beside you, and to remark that you cannot expect to escape the common danger of being talked to even if you do not care to play.” “You are very welcome. Talking is a game, too, isn’t it? We are supposed always to be ready to play that.” “Nevertheless, perhaps I should ask you first, as the young man did just now about the other game, whether you really are willing. You might choose to go on with the book, and I could study the scenery.” “This game has begun already. As for the book, I came to a stupid place,—a lot of description.” “You know,” I said, “a man finds a certain justification for talking to a woman in the fact recently exploited by science, that woman does not talk to herself. While they still urge that it is not good for man to be alone, man seems to have invented one means of getting on alone that is denied to women; for if he can talk to himself he has acquired a singularly useful safety valve.” “I am sure it is very nice of you, when you could talk to yourself, to waste words on me. I hope there isn’t anything in this new theory that may prove that man _must_ talk. It would be upsetting, you know. Perhaps it isn’t true that women never talk to themselves. I don’t believe that I ever talk to myself, but I don’t have to. There is always somebody about. And I really never have anything left to say to myself.” “I think I should prefer to have you take me for granted,” I said. “It would spoil your effect if you were either grateful or resentful. After all, these scientific generalizations are distressingly misleading. Take that recent statement that baldness is a safeguard against insanity. Some of the hair-restorer advertisements do not seem to indicate a faith in the entire sanity of the bald. Yet it is a benevolent theory. No one would voluntarily lose his hair for the certainty of not losing his reason, but the bald may derive some real solace from the invention. Doubtless many of life’s most comforting assurances have no better foundation.” “Are you in that mood?” “I am rebuked for my platitude.” “In the talk game platitudes are very safe, don’t you think?” “Perhaps they are; and in most games simply being safe naturally occupies much of the time. Yet in the talk game it can’t be fair to catch one’s breath with a platitude too often—not unless one wishes to be thrown back upon solitaire.” “Solitaire is an excellent game. I think it is much underrated.” “It is very safe, too.” “Yes, and it is unquarrelsome. It never breaks friendships.” “I can’t imagine you quarrelling in a game,” I ventured to say. “Perhaps that is because I know with whom to play,—and which games to keep out of.”