must not believe that--I do not wish you to. That is not
true. How can you credit me with being so foolish? For it is a very
foolish thing indeed for two people of opposite sex to form and
conceive any such relation as pure friendship. In Amalia's case it is
nothing more than playing that I love her. I should not care anything
about her at all, if she were not a little coquettish.

"Would that there were more like her in our circle! Just in fun, one
must really love all the ladies."

"Julius, I believe you are going completely crazy!"

"Now understand me aright--I do not really mean all of them, but all
of them who are lovable and happen to come one's way."

"That is nothing more than what the French call _galanterie_ and
_coquetterie_."

"Nothing more--except that I think of it as something beautiful and
clever. And then men ought to know what the ladies are doing and what
they want; and that is rarely the case. A fine pleasantry is apt to be
transformed in their hands into coarse seriousness."

"This loving just in fun is not at all a funny thing to look at."

"That is not the fault of the fun--it is just miserable jealousy.
Forgive me, dearest--I do not wish to get excited, but I must confess
that I cannot understand how any one can be jealous. For lovers do not
offend each other, but do things to please each other. Hence it must
come from uncertainty, absence of love, and unfaithfulness to oneself.
For me happiness is assured, and love is one with constancy. To be
sure, it is a different matter with people who love in the ordinary
way. The man loves only the race in his wife, the woman in her husband
only the degree of his ability and social position, and both love in
their children only their creation and their property. Under those
circumstances fidelity comes to be a merit, a virtue, and jealousy is
in order. For they are quite right in tacitly believing that there are
many like themselves, and that one man is about as good as the next,
and none of them worth very much."

"You look upon jealousy, then, as nothing but empty vulgarity and lack
of culture."

"Yes, or rather as mis-culture and perversity, which is just as bad or
still worse. According to that system the best thing for a man to do
is to marry of set purpose out of sheer obligingness and courtesy.
And certainly for such folk it must be no less convenient than
entertaining, to live out their lives together in a state of mutual
contempt. Wome