"I said 'real lover,' my dear," he remarked. "The real lover is the one
who talks definitely about dates and the house agent's commission. As a
rule the real lover does not make love. True love is born, not made. But
you--Heavens above! perhaps I did an injustice to you--to you and to the
men. Maybe you're not such a tyro after all, Phyllis."

Phyllis gave a very pretty little laugh--such a laugh as would have
convinced any man but a father--perhaps, indeed, some fathers--that she
was not without experience. Suddenly she became grave. Her father never
loved her so dearly as when that little laugh was flying over her
face, leaving its living footprints at the corners of her eyes, at the
exquisite curve of her mouth. It relieved her from the suspicion of
priggishness to which, now and again, her grave moods and appropriate
words laid her open. She was not so proper, after all, her father now
felt; she was a girl with the experiences of a girl who has tempted men
and seen what came of it.

She spoke:

"It is a very serious thing, giving a man your promise and then----"

"Then finding that your duty to him--to him, mind--forces you to tell
him that you cannot carry out that promise," said her father. "Yes, it
is a very serious thing, but not so serious as carrying out that promise
would be if you had even the least little feeling that at the end of
three months he was not a better man than you suspected he was at the
beginning. There's a bright side to everything, even a honeymoon; but
the reason that a honeymoon is so frequently a failure is because the
man is bound to be found out by his wife inside the month. It is better