me, Austin. . . . Is that the evening
paper? Where is St. Paul?"

Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately
yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.

"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the book and
pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, grossly out of
proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth's rotation, you
know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read 'em? They
grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a
man's existence. The other five-sixths of his time he's using his other
senses working for a living."

Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it.

"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of the
pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it
controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it
prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces
agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors. . . . Does it act that
way in real life?"

"Not usually," said Selwyn.

"Nobody else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why
doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins
to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy
from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the
club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time
does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the
result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper
importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire
life."

He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a
fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.

"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a book--" He
paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at
space.

"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his
brother-in-law.

"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly.

"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and
white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That's
wholesome and natural; and that's the way things really are. Look at
Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?"

"Naturally not," said Selwyn.

"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper e