“I have thrown over Mr. Holland because he has written a book to make people have contempt for the Bible,” said Phyllis.

“Then all I can say is that you were never in love with the man,” cried Ella.

“You may say that if you please.”

“I do say it.  If a girl really loves a man, she will marry him even though he should write a book against Darwin.  If a girl really loves a man she will stand by him all the closer when he is undergoing a course of honorable persecution, with his portrait in every paper that one picks up.”

“I dare say that is true enough,” assented Phyllis.  “Perhaps I never did really love Mr. Holland.  Perhaps I only fancied I cared for him because I saw that so many other girls—­took to wearing chocolates and grays and kept their sleeves down just when sleeves were highest.”

“Of course it was only natural that you should wish to—­well, colloquially, to wipe the eyes of the other girls.  How many girls, I should like to know, begin to think of a man as a possible husband until they perceive that the thoughts of other girls are turned in his direction?”

“At any rate, whatever I may have done long ago—­”

“Three months ago.”

“Three months ago.  Whatever I may have done then, I know that I don’t love him now.”

“Don’t be too sure, my dear Phyllis.  If there is one thing more than another about which a woman should never be positive, it is whether or not she loves a particular man.  What mistakes they make!  No, I’ll never believe that you turned him adrift simply because he wrote something disparagingly about Solomon, or was it David?  And I did so want you and him for my next day; I meant it to be such a coup, to have returned to town only a week and yet to have the most outrageously unorthodox parson at my house.  Ah, that would indeed have been a coup!  Never mind, I can at least have the beautiful girl who, though devoted to the unorthodox parson, threw him over on account of his unorthodoxy.”

“Yes, you are certain of me—­that is, if you think I should—­if it wouldn’t seem a little——­”

“What nonsense, Phyllis!  Where have you been living for the past twenty-three years that you should get such a funny notion into your head?  Do you think that girls nowadays absent themselves from felicity awhile when they find it necessary to become—­well, disengaged—­yes, or divorced, for that matter?”

“I really can’t recollect any case of—­”

“Of course you can’t.  They don’t exist.  The proper thing for a women to do when she gets a divorce is to take a box at a theatre and give the audience a chance of recognizing her from her portraits that have already appeared in the illustrated papers.  The block printing has done that too.  There’s not a theatre manager in London who wouldn’t give his best box to a woman who has come straight from the divorce court.  The managers recognize the fact that she is in the same line as themselves.  But for you, my dear Phyllis—­oh, you will never do him the injustice to keep your throwing over of him a secret.”