She looked at me.

"I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time--for the sake
of the change--and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe."

"Dear lady--in fact--" Again I fell victim to an odious, asinine
stammering, and in addition blushed in a way that might have been
appropriate for a youngster of sixteen, but not for me, who was
almost a full ten years older--

"You were afraid of me last night."

"Really--of course--but won't you sit down?"

She sat down, and enjoyed my embarrassment--for actually I was even
more afraid of her now in the full light of day. A delightful
expression of contempt hovered about her upper lip.

"You look at love, and especially woman," she began, "as something
hostile, something against which you put up a defense, even if
unsuccessfully. You feel that their power over you gives you a
sensation of pleasurable torture, of pungent cruelty. This is a
genuinely modern point of view."

"You don't share it?"

"I do not share it," she said quickly and decisively, shaking her
head, so that her curls flew up like red flames.

"The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene