ll rows. Neither
does anybody in your immediate family. I was merely questioning the
wisdom of your public appearance--under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?"

His sister looked at him calmly:

"The circumstances of your understanding with Stephanie.... An
understanding of years, which, in her mind at least, amounts to a tacit
engagement."

"I'm glad you said that," he began, after a moment's steady thinking.
"If that is the way that Stephanie and you still regard a college
affair--"

"A--what!"

"A boy-and-girl preference which became an undergraduate romance--and
has never amounted to anything more--"

"Louis!"

"What?"

"Don't you _care_ for her?"

"Certainly; as much as I ever did--as much, as she really and actually
cares for me," he answered, defiantly. "You know perfectly well what
such affairs ever amount to--in the sentimental-ever-after line. Infant
sweethearts almost never marry. She has no more idea of it than have I.
We are fond of each other; neither of us has happened, so far, to
encounter the real thing. But as soon as the right man comes along
Stephanie will spread her wings and take flight--"

"You don't know her! Well--of all faithless wretches--your inconstancy
makes me positively ill!"

"Inconstancy! I'm not inconstant. I never saw a girl I liked better than
Stephanie. I'm not likely to. But that doesn't mean that I want to marry
her--"

"For shame!"

"Nonsense! Why do you talk about inconstancy? It's a ridiculous word.
What is constancy in love? Either an accident or a fortunate state of
mind. To promise constancy in love is promising to continue in a state
of mind over which your will has no control. It's never an honest
promise; it can be only an honest hope. Love comes and goes and no man
can stay it, and no man is its prophet. Coming unasked, sometimes
undesired, often unwelcome, it goes unbidden, without reason, without
logic, as inexorably as it came, governed by laws that no man has ever
yet understood--"

"Louis!" exclaimed his sister, bewildered; "what in the world are you
lecturing about? Why, to hear you expound the anatomy of love--"

He began to laugh, caught her hands, and kissed her:

"Little goose, that was all impromptu and horribly trite and
commonplace. Only it was new to me because I never before took the
trouble to consider it. But it's true, even if it is trite. People love
or they don't love, and a regard for ethics controls only what they do