"But it happened in this way: I had found everybody--very nice, you know--particularly the men,--and the things which cannot be laughed at I had always put aside as not worth thinking about. You like to laugh, too, but I have always known--and sometimes it gets me real mad to think about it, I can tell you--that you could be in earnest if you chose, and I can't. And that makes me a little sorry and tremendously glad, because, quite frankly, I _am_ head over heels in love with you. That is why I don't intend to marry you." And I was not a little at sea. "Oh, very well!" I pleasantly announced, "I shall become a prominent citizen at once, if that's all that is necessary. I will join every one of the patriotic societies, and sit perpetually on platforms with a perspiring water-pitcher, and unveil things every week, with felicitous allusions to the glorious past of our grand old State; and have columns of applause in brackets on the front page of the _Courier-Herald_. I will even go into civic politics, if you insist upon it, and leave round-cornered cards at all the drugstores, so that everybody who buys a cigar will know I am subject to the Democratic primary. I wonder, by the way, if people ever survive that malady? It sounds to me a deal more dangerous that epilepsy, say, yet lots of persons seem to have it--" But Elena was not listening. "You know," she re-began, "I could get out of it all very gracefully by telling you you drink too much. You couldn't argue it, you know--particularly after your behavior last Tuesday." "Oh, now and then one must be sociable. You aren't a prude, Elena--" "However, I am not really afraid of that, somehow. I even confess I don't actually _mind_ your being rather good for nothing. No woman ever really does, though she has her preference, and pretends, of course, to mind a great deal. What I mean, then, is this: You don't marry just me. I--I have very few relations, just two brothers and my mother; yet, in a sense, you know, you marry them as well. But I don't believe you would like being married to them. They are so different from you, dear. Your whole view-point of life is different--" I had begun to speak when she broke in: "No, don't say anything, please, until I'm quite, quite through. My brothers are the most admirable men I ever knew. I love them more than I can say. I trust them more than I do you. But they are just _good_. They don't fail in the really important things of life, but they are remiss in little ways, they--they don't _care_ for the little elegantnesses, if that's a word. Even Arthur chews tobacco when he feels inclined. And he thinks no _man_ would smoke a cigarette. Oh, I can't explain just what I mean--" "I think I understand, Elena. Suppose we let it pass as said."