such a connection.
But the girl is different from the man in all ways. You have as much to
learn from her as she has from you, and neither of you can come to
ideal growth in any other way: you are both half-parts of
humanity--complements, and in need of each other."

"You have put it very cunningly, Frank, as I expected you would, to
return your compliment, but you must admit that with the boy, at any
rate, you have no jealousy, no mean envyings, no silly inanities. There
it is, Frank, some of us hate 'cats.' I can give reasons for my dislike,
which to me are conclusive."

"The boy who would beg for a bicycle is not likely to be without mean
envyings," I replied. "Now you have talked about romance and
companionship," I went on, "but can you really feel passion?"

"Frank, what a silly question! Do you remember how Socrates says he felt
when the chlamys blew aside and showed him the limbs of Charmides? Don't
you remember how the blood throbbed in his veins and how he grew blind
with desire, a scene more magical than the passionate love-lines of
Sappho?

"There is no other passion to be compared with it. A woman's passion is
degrading. She is continually tempting you. She wants your desire as a
satisfaction for her vanity more than anything else, and her vanity is
insatiable if her desire is weak, and so she continually tempts you to
excess, and then blames you for the physical satiety and disgust which
she herself has created. With a boy there is no vanity in the matter, no
jealousy, and therefore none of the tempting, not a tenth part of the
coarseness; and consequently desire is always fresh and keen. Oh, Frank,
believe me, you don't know what a great romantic passion is."

"What you say only shows how little you know women," I replied. "If you
explained all this to the girl who loves you, she would see it at once,
and her tenderness would grow with her self-abnegation; we all grow by
giving. If the woman cares more than the man for caresses and kindness,
it is because she feels more tenderness, and is capable of intenser
devotion."

"You don't know what you are talking about, Frank," he retorted. "You
repeat the old accepted commonplaces. The boy came to the station with
me to-night. He knew I was going away for six months. His heart was like
lead, tears gathered in his eyes again and again in spite of himself,
and yet he tried to be gay and bright for my sake; he wanted to show me
how glad he was that I should