“After all,” said the banker, ironically, “there is a slight difference between reading a love adventure and going out and having one.” “No,” said the story-writer; “the difference is not slight; it is considerable. But just what is that difference? A love adventure in story form is guaranteed to be complete in itself, to be over when it is finished, and to leave behind it nothing but a pleasant memory in the reader’s mind. In all these ways it differs from a love adventure in reality concerning which no such safe guarantees can be offered. We try to live orderly lives, and while the love adventures of reality may upset the well considered plans of a lifetime, the other kind leave everything exactly as it was. The heroine may swoon with ecstasy in your arms to-night; but she will not call you up on the telephone in the morning or write you passionate and compromising letters.” “Poor girl--she can’t!” said the banker. “She doesn’t want to. It is only women of the real world who want love to be a part of life. She belongs to the world of romance, which has laws of its own.” “The world of fancy,” said the banker. “Don’t pretend to despise the world of fancy,” said the story-writer. “Fond as we are of the real world, it is far from satisfying all our demands. It is too inexorable. The phantom world of fancy is in many respects a more agreeable place. And everybody goes to it for solace. The sober triumphs of reality are never able for long to satisfy us; always we turn from those four-square actualities to live for a delightful hour in that extravagant land where our most impossible wishes can come true. It is a need of our human nature.” “Oh, no doubt,” said the banker. “But nevertheless----” The story-teller interrupted him. “Have you thought of this? That the self which goes out adventuring in the land of fancy is not a part of this real life of ours, at all? It is a kind of phantom, existing joyously and irresponsibly in a phantom world.” “I hadn’t thought of it just like that,” said the banker, reflectively. “But here is the real question. These adventurers in the phantom realm of fancy, _why do they never meet_?” The banker stared. “I’m not sure that I understand you.” “Suppose a man and a girl, unknown to each other, reading the same story at the same time; their phantom selves are sharing the same adventure, one that some writer has created for them. But suppose they dispense with the writer’s assistance. Suppose these phantom selves should meet and create their own adventure. Why not?” The banker stirred uneasily in his chair. The story-writer laughed. “It might happen.” “It might,” said the banker. “I wonder,” said the story-writer, “what my wife would say if I told her of such an adventure. It would be like all my other adventures, more beautiful, perhaps, than any of the others. And yet----” “I hope,” said the banker, frowning, “that you----”