time on themselves with amazement ... I refuse to look forward to wasting
eternity.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Shaking her head._] You are very self-satisfied.

TREBELL. Not more so than any machine that runs smoothly. And I hope not
self-conscious.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Rather attractively treating him as a child._] It would do
you good to fall really desperately in love with me ... to give me the power
to make you unhappy.

_He suddenly becomes very definite._

TREBELL. At twenty-three I engaged myself to be married to a charming and
virtuous fool. I broke it off.

AMY O'CONNELL. Did she mind much?

TREBELL. We both minded. But I had ideals of womanhood that I wouldn't
sacrifice to any human being. Then I fell in with a woman who seduced me,
and for a whole year led me the life of a French novel ... played about
with my emotion as I had tortured that other poor girl's brains. Education
you'd call it in the one case as I called it in the other. What a waste of
time!

AMY O'CONNELL. And what has become of your ideal?

TREBELL. [_Relapsing to his former mood._] It's no longer a personal matter.