“I was afraid my Clara was going to be silly,” he said, smoothing her fine hair the wrong way, as men will, for it was rolled back at the sides over a heavy twist, and, of course, his caresses endangered the elegant finish of her coiffure, which had cost Clara more effort than he knew. “Smooth my hair back, dear,” she said. “Don’t you see the way it is brushed?” and taking his fine hand, she passed it over her hair in the right way. “You mean I had better keep my hands away. Don’t you?” he asked, pleasantly. “No, no; only that you should not endanger the structure, or I shall have it to do over again. You may pull my curls, baby. You can’t hurt them.” “Don’t call me baby. You know I hate it.” “Excuse me. I am sorry you dislike it. There is no pet word that seems so tender to me. I wonder what possible word could offend me, if you found it a real medium of fondness?” “Suppose I should call you ducky?” “That sounds common and trivial; but if it served to express the tenderness that the word ‘baby’ does to me, I should soon find it adorable. Albert,” she said, after a pause, and with great enthusiasm, twining her bare arms about his neck, “Clara loves you as you have never dreamed of loving. Her love is greater than you need—greater than you can possibly respond to—and one day you will find it a millstone around your neck!” “Well, that is pleasant. How long since you arrived at that astute conclusion?” he asked, laughing, as if greatly amused. “I thought my love satisfied you.” “Do not speak in that tone. Do not make me regret wearing my heart upon my sleeve. Your love satisfied me when I had not understood the depth of my own; now, when a crisis comes, and you see me shaken like a reed, you do not answer seriousness with seriousness, intensity with intensity. You call me jealous, and treat me like a pretty butterfly woman, who must be managed by her husband.” “A crisis! I like that. You find me alone a moment with an old friend, who happens to be a charming woman, and you call it a crisis!” “I think a physician should reason more nicely than that; he should look at effects. Was the princess in the story, who was made all black and blue by sleeping on a crumpled rose-leaf, any the less black and blue because it _was_ a rose-petal, and not a brush-heap?” “There are some princesses who are morbidly sensitive. I would have them harden their _epidermes_ a little.”