"'Jeff,' says she, 'it isn't quite like you to talk that way. I don't
care to hear Ed Collier ridiculed. A man may do ridiculous things,
but they don't look ridiculous to the girl he does 'em for. That was
the man in a hundred. He stopped eating just to please me. I'd be
hard-hearted and ungrateful if I didn't feel kindly toward him. Could
you do what he did?'

"'I know,' says I, seeing the point, 'I'm condemned. I can't help it.
The brand of the consumer is upon my brow. Mrs. Eve settled that
business for me when she made the dicker with the snake. I fell from
the fire into the frying-pan. I guess I'm the Champion Feaster of the
Universe.' I spoke humble, and Mame mollified herself a little.

"'Ed Collier and I are good friends,' she said, 'the same as me and
you. I gave him the same answer I did you--no marrying for me. I liked
to be with Ed and talk with him. There was something mighty pleasant
to me in the thought that here was a man who never used a knife and
fork, and all for my sake.'

"'Wasn't you in love with him?' I asks, all injudicious. 'Wasn't there
a deal on for you to become Mrs. Curiosity?'

"All of us do it sometimes. All of us get jostled out of the line of
profitable talk now and then. Mame put on that little lemon _glacé_
smile that runs between ice and sugar, and says, much too pleasant:
'You're short on credentials for asking that question, Mr. Peters.
Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand
on, and then maybe I'll answer it.'