“Now we come to the interesting part—­to me!”

“But I shan’t gratify you, you mouser!  It is enough to say, that in a few simple words, uttered, I am sure, without forethought, she placed my frivolity before me, and then showed me what I might and ought to be.  I was like a grasshopper before, drunk with dew, and then sobered by a plunge into a clear, cool spring.  Besides, I have thought more about your advice in regard to the lady, you dissembling old rascal!  For you know that in such matters you never mean what you say; and when you counsel me to fall in love with a coquette, you only wish me to be warned in time and make good my escape.  If it were light enough, I should see that grizzly moustache of yours curl like a cat’s, this minute.  You can grin, you amiable Mephistopheles, but I know you!  No, my dear Easelmann, I am cured.  I shall take hold of my pencils with new energy.  I will save money and go abroad, and——­I had nearly forgotten her!  I will take a new look at my darling’s sweet face in my pocket, and, like Ulysses, I’ll put wax into my ears when I meet the singing Siren again.”

“I hope your rustic fiancee is not clairvoyant?”

“I hope not.”

“If she is, she will cry her little eyes out to-night.”

“Don’t speak of it, I beg of you.”

“You are getting lugubrious; we shall have to change the subject.  Love affects people in as many different ways as wine.  Some are exalted,—­their feet spurn the earth, their heads are in the clouds; some pugnacious, walking about with a chip on the shoulder; others are stupidly happy,—­their faces wearing a sickly smile that becomes painful to look at; others again, like you, melancholy as a wailing tenor in the last act of ‘Lucia.’  Like learning, a little draught of love is dangerous; drink largely and be sober.  The charmer will not cast so powerful a spell upon you the next time, and you will come away more tranquil.”

There was just the least shade of sarcasm in the tone, and Greenleaf, as usual, was a little puzzled.  For Easelmann was a study,—­always agreeable, never untruthful, but fond of launching an idea like a boomerang, to sweep away, apparently, but to return upon some unexpected curve.  His real meaning could not always be gathered from any isolated sentence; and to strangers he was a living riddle.  But Greenleaf had passed the excitable period, and had lapsed into a state of moody repentance and grim resolution.

“You need not tempt me,” he said, “even if that were your object, which I doubt, you sly fox!  And if you mean only to pique my pride in order to cure my inconstancy to my betrothed, I assure you it is quite unnecessary.  I shall have too much self-respect to place myself in the way of temptation again.”

“Now you are growing disagreeable; the virtuous resolutions of a diner-out, on the headachy morning after, are never pleasant to hear.  There is so much implied!  One does not like to follow the idea backward to its naughty source.  The penitent should keep his sermons and soda-water to himself.”