"Almost anywhere--outside yourself," murmured the Older Man blandly.

"Eh?" jerked the Younger Man.

"That's what I said," drawled the Older Man with unruffled suavity.
"But what's the use?" he added a trifle more briskly. "Though you
searched a thousand years! A 'real girl'? Bah! You wouldn't know a
'real girl' if you saw her!"

"I tell you I would!" snapped the Younger Man.

"I tell you--you wouldn't!" said the Older Man.

"Prove it!" challenged the Younger Man.

"It's already proved!" confided the Older Man. "Ha! I know your type!"
he persisted frankly. "You're the sort of fellow, at a party, who
just out of sheer fool-instinct will go trampling down every other man
in sight just for the sheer fool-joy of trying to get the first dance
with the most conspicuously showy-looking, most conspicuously
artificial-looking girl in the room--who always and invariably 'bores
you to death' before the evening is over! And while you and the rest
of your kind are battling together--year after year--for this special
privilege of being 'bored to death,' the 'real girl' that you're
asking about, the marvelous girl, the girl with the big, beautiful,
unspoken thoughts in her head, the girl with the big, brave, undone
deeds in her heart, the girl that stories are made of, the girl whom
you call 'improbable'--is moping off alone in some dark, cold
corner--or sitting forlornly partnerless against the bleak wall of the