I believe I have said before that demonstrations of affection were strictly prohibited; but I have not remarked that in the by-laws subsequently drafted by Miss Jones for the regulation of their abnormal relation, oral references to the same interesting topic were likewise forbidden. When Miss Jones had her own way, she usually talked music, and talked intelligently and well. She seemed to find a kind of humorous satisfaction in confining her adorer strictly to practical topics and in ignoring sentimental allusions. If he rebelled against this sort of maltreatment, and became silent and moody, she aggravated the offence by not appearing to notice it. She would then find employment in separating little boys who fought in the street, or in eliciting confidences from old apple-women. There was something almost fiercely virginal about her, something bordering upon enthusiasm in the way she repelled an attempted incursion upon the forbidden ground. And withal she was so tender and sympathetic toward all mankind, that her wilful obtuseness on the subject of love bore to him the appearance of wanton cruelty. It did not occur to him that she might be acting in self-defence, fearing to give the slightest rein to a feeling which might, on very slight provocation, run away with her. She was the kind of girl which one does not readily think of in connection with the tender passion; and whose love, perhaps, for this very reason, seems so ineffably precious to him who is trying to win it.
"Did it ever occur to you," he said to her one day, as they were walking together under the leafless arches of the Rosenthal, "that when God saw all that He had made, and 'behold it was very good,' He left woman out?"
"No, I didn't know it," she said, with a gleam of amusement.
"Nevertheless, it is so," he went on. "When He said it was all very good, woman was not yet created. After she was made, God said nothing at all."
"That was because she was so nice that she needed no commendation," rejoined Miss Jones promptly.
"For all that, history shows that she has made a deal of mischief in the world," said Grover lugubriously; he was feeling piqued and abused at her want of responsiveness to his undisguised admiration.