Once she even went so far as to declare that Plato was a "horrid
man," and that she believed I thought more of him than of her--a
most ridiculous conclusion but so essentially feminine that I
forgave her at once. And, when she came to me, and put her arms
around my neck and urged me to go with her to a tennis match--a
foolish game where grown-up people knock little balls over a net
with a battledore--I pointed out to her that such spectacles,
while eminently proper for young folk, argued a failing mind in
those of maturer years. With a charming pout she said:

"Do you think you would have refused to go if my mother had asked
you?"

Now tennis is a sport that has come up since Sylvia and I were
children together, but I recalled, with a guilty blush, the time
when she and I won the village championship in doubles in an all
day siege of croquet, so what could I say in my own defence?
Therefore I went with Phyllis to the tennis-court and sat for two
long and inexpressibly dreary hours watching the senseless and
stupid proceedings. It was pleasant to reflect that I was with
Sylvia's daughter, and I tried to imagine that the keen interest
of youth still remained, but I was sadly out of place. I am
satisfied that this game of tennis has nothing of the fascinating
quality of croquet. On our arrival home Phyllis kissed me, and
thanked me for what she called my "self-denial," but after that
one experience Frederick represented me at the tennis-court, as,
indeed, the good-natured boy consented to do at many similar
festivities.

And so the summer wore gradually away, one day's enjoyment
lazily following another's, with nothing to disturb the serenity
of my life, or to interfere with the calm content into which I
had settled. Phyllis was everything that a moderate and
reasonable lover could wish--kind, gentle, affectionate within
the bounds of maidenly discretion, attentive to my wishes,
and considerate of my caprices. The more I saw of her the
more I was persuaded that I had chosen wisely and well. One
afternoon--Frederick, at my suggestion, had gallantly given up
his work in the office and taken Phyllis down the river. I sat
with Bunsey in the library, and took occasion to expound to him
the philosophy of perfect love.

"The trouble is," I said, "that people rush blindly into
matrimony. They think they are in love, work themselves up to the
proper pitch of madness, propose and marry while they are in
delirium. Hence, so