How can any one bring a child into the world and not wrap it round with a certain wondrous tenderness that will stay with it always! There are persons whose souls have never entered into them. My mother has some fondness for me--for my body because it came of hers. That is nothing--nothing. A hen loves its egg. A hen! April 3. This evening in the slow-deepening dusk I sat by my window and spent an hour in passionate conversation with the Devil. I fancied I sat, with my hands folded and my feet crossed, on an ugly but comfortable red velvet sofa in some nondescript room. And the fascinating man-devil was seated near in a frail willow chair. He had willingly come to pass the time of day with me. He was in a good-humored mood, and I amused and interested him. And for myself, I was extremely glad to see the Devil sitting there and felt vividly as always. But I sat quietly enough. The fascinating man-devil has fascinating steel-gray eyes, and they looked at me with every variety of glance--from quizzical to tender. It were easy--oh, how easy--to follow those eyes to the earth’s ends. The Devil leaned back in the frail willow chair and looked at me. “And now that I am here, Mary MacLane,” he said, “what would you?” “I want you to marry me,” I replied at once. “And I want it more than ever anything was wanted since the world began.” “So? I am flattered,” said the Devil, and smiled gently, enchantingly. At that smile I was ravished and transported, and a spasm of some rare emotion thrilled all the little nerves in me from my heels to my forehead. And yet the smile was not for me but rather somewhat at my expense. “But,” he went on, “you must know it is not my custom to marry women.” “I am sure it is not,” I agreed, “and I do not ask to be peculiarly favored. Anything that you may give me, however little, will constitute marriage for me.” “And would marriage itself be so small a thing?” asked the Devil. “Marriage,” I said, “would be a great, oh, a wonderful thing, and the most beautiful of all. I want what is good according to my lights, and because I am a genius my lights are many and far-reaching.” “What do your lights tell you?” the man-devil inquired. “They tell me this: that nothing in the world matters unless love is with it, and if love is with it and it seems to the virtuous a barren and infamous thing, still--because of the love--it partakes of the very highest.” “And have you the courage of your convictions?” he said. “If you offered me,” I replied, “that which to the blindly virtuous seems the worst possible thing, it would yet be for me the red, red line on the sky, my heart’s desire, my life, my rest. You are the Devil. I have fallen in love with you.” “I believe you have,” said the Devil. “And how does it feel to be in love?”