Each last time that I see you makes me forget all the others; but never once have I forgotten _you_." "In my experience," commented the girl, sagely, "all men talk very much alike." "Yes, I told you at the masked ball," said I, "that sometime I would see you, masks off.

Was it not true?
I did not at first know you when you broke up my match with Orme, but I swore that sometime I would know you.
And when I saw you that night on the river, it seemed to me I certainly must have met you before--have known you always--and now--" "You had to study my rings and clothing to identify me with myself!" "But you flatter me when you say that you knew me each time," I ventured.

"I am glad that I have given you no occasion to prove the truth of your own statement, that I, like other men, am interested only in the last girl, the nearest girl.

You have had no reason--" "My experience with men," went on this sage young person, "leads me to believe that they are the stupidest of all created creatures.

There was never once, there is never once, when a girl does not notice a man who is--well, who is taking notice!" "Very well, then," I broke out, "I admit it! I did take notice of four different girls, one after the other--but it was because each of them was fit to wipe out the image of all the others--and of all the others in the world." This was going far.