And, in a little while, seeing I was silent, she condescended to glance towards me: 

“Then I suppose, under the circumstances, you have never been—­in love?”

“In love?” I repeated, and dropped my pipe.

“In love.”

“The Lord forbid!”

“Why, pray?”

“Because Love is a disease—­a madness, coming between a man and his life’s work.  Love!” said I, “it is a calamity!”

“Never having been in love himself, our blacksmith, very naturally, knows all about it!” said Charmian to the moon.

“I speak only of such things as I have read—­” I began.

“More books!” she sighed.

“—­words of men, much wiser than I—­poets and philosophers, written—­”

“When they were old and gray-headed,” Charmian broke in; “when they were quite incapable of judging the matter—­though many a grave philosopher loved; now didn’t he?”

“To be sure,” said I, rather hipped, “Dionysius Lambienus, I think, says somewhere that a woman with a big mouth is infinitely sweeter in the kissing—­and—­”

“Do you suppose he read that in a book?” she inquired, glancing at me sideways.

“Why, as to that,” I answered, “a philosopher may love, but not for the mere sake of loving.”

“For whose sake then, I wonder?”

“A man who esteems trifles for their own sake is a trifler, but one who values them, rather, for the deductions that may be drawn from them—­he is a philosopher.”

Charmian rose, and stood looking down at me very strangely.

“So!” said she, throwing back her head, “so, throned in lofty might, superior Mr. Smith thinks Love a trifle, does he?”

“My name is Vibart, as I think you know,” said I, stung by her look or her tone, or both.

“Yes,” she answered, seeming to look down at me from an immeasurable attitude, “but I prefer to know him, just now, as Superior Mr. Smith.”

“As you will,” said I, and rose also; but, even then, though she had to look up to me, I had the same inward conviction that her eyes were regarding me from a great height; wherefore I, attempted—­quite unsuccessfully to light my pipe.

And after I had struck flint and steel vainly, perhaps a dozen times, Charmian took the box from me, and, igniting the tinder, held it for me while I lighted my tobacco.

“Thank you!” said I, as she returned the box, and then I saw that she was smiling.  “Talking of Charmian Brown—­” I began.

“But we are not.”

“Then suppose you begin?”

“Do you really wish to hear about that—­humble person?”

“Very much!”

“Then you must know, in the first place, that she is old, sir, dreadfully old!”

“But,” said I, “she really cannot be more than twenty-three—­or four at the most.”

“She is just twenty-one!” returned Charmian, rather hastily, I thought.

“Quite a child!”