id Falkenstein, briefly, as he took up the
autobiography, and began to talk on it.

"I don't like Goethe for one thing," said Valerie; "he loved a dozen
women one after the other. That I would pardon him; most men do so; but
I don't believe he really loved any one of them."

"Oh yes he did; quite enough, at least, to please himself. He wasn't so
silly as to go in for a never-ending, heart-burning, heart-breaking,
absorbing passion. We don't do those things."

"Go in for it!" repeated Valerie, contemptuously, "I suppose if he had
been of the nature to feel such, he couldn't have helped it."

"I can help going near the fire, can't I, if I don't wish to be burnt?"

"Yes; but a coal may fly out of the fire, and set you in flames, when
you are sitting far away from it."

"Then I ought to wear asbestos," said Waldemar, with a merry quizzical
smile. "You authors, and poets, and artists think 'the world well lost,
and all for love!' but we rational people, who know the world, find it
quite the contrary. Those are very pretty ideas for your proverbs, but
they don't suit real life. _We_, when we're boys, worship some parterre
divinity, till we see her some luckless day inebriate with
eau-de-Cologne, or more unpoetic porter, are cured and disenchanted,
wait ten years with Christines and Minna Herzliebs in the interim, and
wind up with a rich widow, who keeps us straight and heads our table.
_You_, fresh from the school-room, fasten on some lachrymose curate, or
flirting dragoon, as the object of your early romances, walk with him
under the limes, work him a smoking-cap, and write him tender little
notes, till mamma whispers her hope that Mr. A. or B. is serious, and
you, balancing, like a sensible girl, A. or B.'s tangible settlements
with the others' intangible love-speeches, forsake the limes, forswear
the notes, and announce yourself as 'sold.' That's the love of our day,
Miss L'Estrange, and very wise and----"

"Love!" cried Valerie, with supreme scorn. "You don't know the common A
B C of love. You might as well call gilt leather-work pure gold."

Falkenstein laughed heartily. "Well, there's a good deal more
leather-work than gold about in the world, isn't there?"

"A good deal more, granted; but there is some gold to be found, I should
hope."

"Not without alloy; it can't be worked, you know."

"It can't be worked for the base purposes of earth; but it may be found
still undefiled before men's touch has soiled it.