s: do you like them?"

"That depends upon the quality and flavor--and--perhaps somewhat upon
who offers them. I never buy bon-bons for my private and personal
pleasure. Do any of you fellows really care for bon-bons?"

"That depends upon the kind of happiness we are in quest of; I mean the
quality and flavor of the girl we are going to give them to."

"Have girls a flavor?"

"Some of them have--perhaps most of them haven't; neither have they form
nor feature, nor tint nor texture, nor anything that appeals to a fellow
of taste and sentiment."

"I'm sorry for these girls of yours----"

"You needn't be sorry for the girls; they are not my girls, and not one
of them ever will be mine if I can help it----"

"Oh, indeed!"

"They are nothing to me, and I'm nothing to them; but they are
just--they are just the formless sort of thing that a formless sort of
fellow always marries; they help to fill up the world, you know."

"Yes, they help to fill a world that is overfull already. Poor Mama and
Eugene don't know how full it is. When Gene wants to sell a picture and
can't, he thinks it's a desert island."

"Probably they could live on a desert island and be perfectly happy and
content," said Paul.

"Of course they could; the only trouble would be that unless some one
called them at the proper hours they'd forget to eat--and some day
they'd be found dead locked in their last embrace."

"How jolly!"

"Oh, very jolly for very young lovers; they are usually such fools!"

"And yet, I believe I'd like to be a fool for love's sake, Miss. Juno."

"Oh, Paul, you are one for your own,--at least I'll think so, if you
work yourself into this silly vein!"

Paul was silent and thoughtful. After a pause she continued.

"The trouble with you is, you fancy yourself in love with every new girl
you meet--at least with the latest one, if she is at all out of the
ordinary line."

"The trouble with me is that I don't keep on loving the same girl long
enough to come to the happy climax--if the climax _is_ to be a happy
one; of course it doesn't follow that it is to be anything of the sort.
I've been brought up in the bosom of too many families to believe in the
lasting quality of love. Yet they are happy, you say, those two gentle
people perpetuating spring on canvas and cambric. See, there is a small
cloud of butterflies hovering about them--one of them is panting in
fairy-like ecstasy on the poppy that decorates your Mama's hat!