I smiled acquiescence. "Well?" she said. "Well," said I. "And why not?" said she; adding sweetly, "My poor Kent, will you never learn not to be tender-hearted? Will you never give up your bad habit of being sorrier for others than they are for themselves? Let me tell you something: you have never mentioned marriage or love to me because you thought it would be cruel--because you thought that having lost all that, I cannot bear to consider it. My dear Kent, you don't know much about men, but you know nothing about women. Women aren't like that. Women have not that kind of selfishness." I kissed her poor thin hand, so white and frail. "Kent, dear," she said, "Kent, dear, how much do you love her?" "I don't know," I said, or tried to say. "Enough to..." "I don't know," I said. "I only know that I think of nothing else. But look at the difference in age," I added, for I have never learned to have mercy on myself. "Now," she answered, drawing her hand away, "now you are talking rubbish. Naomi's years may be only twenty-nine, but she is quite as old as you in many ways, and you are quite as young as she in others." "But," I said, "I am such a dull, unenterprising..." "Oh, Kent, Kent!" she cried, "when will you learn sense? You are all alike, you men. Your vanity has got to be satisfied. You must assure your own judgment of your own merits. When will you learn that women don't analyse and appraise; women love. That is enough for them--they love. You may want to know the why and wherefore of your feeling for her, and make catalogues of her merits and beauties, and apply the right adjectives in order to find out and support your line of action and prove your good taste; but all the while you are doing that, the woman is loving. She doesn't love you because of anything--she loves. She doesn't care whether you are handsome or ugly, or old or young, or cruel or kind, or strong or weak, or conceited Or humble, whether you drop your h's, or have nothing in the bank--those things are beside the mark, because she loves. "And to think that you," she continued, "you, moving in the world as you have done, Kent, should come to an old bedridden woman to find out this patent secret! Oh, I'm ashamed of you!" "Perhaps I was not quite so ignorant as all that," I said, "but there are certain things that one knows and yet that one's humility won't let one know. But do you mean," I continued, "that men cannot really love at all?" "Not as women can," she replied. "They can desire, they can possess, they can admire, they can serve; but it is not the same thing." "Then----" I began. "Oh no," she hurried on, "not that. It is all as it should be. There is nothing wrong really. Men think they are loving, and therefore it's all right. But they're all householders and slavedrivers at heart. It's a law of life." "I too?" I asked.