He thought a moment.

“It is,” he said, carefully, with that want of recklessness which should endear him to a stone image.

“Do you know it, or shall I tell you?” I said, with fatal geniality.

Another pause.

“Tell me,” he said, heavily, wadding his mind with cotton, for fear some lightness should percolate through it.

“Why, he said that humor was an appreciation of the under side of things.  Isn’t that delicious?”

I spoke with unctuous satisfaction, for I really expected him to comprehend.  He looked at my beaming countenance with grave suspicion, and slowly reddened.  He said nothing.  I still smiled, but my smile was fast freezing.

“Well?” I said, impatiently.

“You are jesting,” he said.  “That isn’t the real answer.”

“Why, yes, it is.  Do you mean to say that you don’t understand?”

“You jest so much.  I never can tell—­” he broke off, helplessly.

“But surely you see that,” I urged.  “How would you define humor?”

“Why, humor is something funny.  There’s nothing funny about—­er—­that that Carlyle said.”

“Yes, but it’s only a very delicate and occult way of exhibiting his acuteness,” I said.  “Don’t you see?  An appreciation of the under side of things—­the side that does not lie on the surface.”

“Are you serious?” he asked, as I leaned back to rest from my toil.

“Perfectly.  But I can hardly believe that you are.”

“Do you mean to say that you really see anything in that definition?”

“I do,” I said, with ominous distinctness.

My manner indicated his stupidity, and he resented it.  He grew excited.

“Now, tell me, on your honor, do you really see anything funnier in the under side of that sofa than in the top side?”

I could have screamed with anguish.  But, being in company, I only smote my hands together in my impotence and prayed for death.

The tension was relieved by the young son of our hostess in the library just beyond having overheard our conversation.  He laid his hand over his mouth and went into such convulsions of silent laughter, all the time writhing and twisting his lean body into such contortions that in watching his extraordinary gymnastics over the head of my unconscious vis-a-vis, and wondering if the boy ever could untie himself, I forgot my suffering.  I even relaxed my mental strain and forgot the stupid man.

Would I could keep on forgetting him.

THE NEW WOMAN

            “You have taught me
  To be in love with noble thoughts.”