‘The image of her! I must say I think you were hardly complimentary,’ says Susan, who seems to be on the look-out for slips. ‘There is nothing in the moon but a man, and a hideous one too—just like the clown at the circus.’ ‘True’—reflectively. ‘Then it couldn’t have been the moon I compared her to. Perhaps’—thoughtfully—‘it was a star. Ah!’—joyfully—‘that’s it—my own particular star. See?’ ‘No,’ says Susan contemptuously; and then: ‘I don’t believe you ever compared her to anything.’ ‘I did—I did indeed, even quite lately,’ says Crosby. But this ambiguous speech receiving no recognition, he goes on: ‘If, as your contemptuous silence evidently means, Susan, you think me incapable of love, you are greatly in the wrong. I assure you I did compare her to that star. There was one special one; but somehow I can’t find it lately. It must have been removed, I think. And besides the star, I remember quite well being under a hallucination that led me to believe that the wettest day under heaven was full of sunshine when she was present; and that when she wasn’t present, no matter how brilliant the sky might be, that the sun never shone. Come, now, Susan; be just. That was real love, wasn’t it?’ ‘I really don’t know,’ says Susan. There is a slight pause; then: ‘Go on.’ ‘Go on?’ ‘Did she die?’ ‘Die? Not much,’ says Crosby cheerfully. ‘Though of course’—relapsing into very suspicious gloom—‘she was dead to me. She’—with deep melancholy—‘thought I couldn’t furnish a house up to her form, so she threw me over.’ ‘What an odious girl!’ says Susan. For the first time a spark of sorrow for him lights her eyes. She flushes softly with most genuine indignation. Crosby looks at her. ‘She was a very pretty girl,’ says he. ‘For all that’—quickly—‘you must hate her.’ ‘On the contrary, I think I love her.’ ‘Still?’ Susan’s face grows disdainful. ‘Even more than ever I did.’ ‘You are very constant.’ ‘That’s the first compliment you ever paid me. But to end my tale—I saw her in town last March.’ ‘Yes?’ Susan has lifted her flower-like face, and is gazing at him. ‘You met her? And she—she—’ ‘Was a widow.’ ‘A widow; and so you and she.... It is quite a romance!’ says Susan, in her soft voice, speaking hurriedly, almost stammering, indeed, in what is perhaps her joyful excitement over this beautiful ending to a sad love-story. ‘And she was as beautiful as ever?’ ‘Well, hardly,’ said Crosby slowly, as if recalling a late picture to mind. ‘She is now, I am sorry to say, all angles. She was once plump. Her nose struck me as anything but Roman now; and her eyes were blacker than ever—I wonder who blacks them?’ ‘Yet when you saw her, you must have thought of the past. You must have—’