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hour?" said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the same thing."
"Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same thing. Of the preference
for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. But I ask: a
preference for how long?"
"For how long? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes."
"But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this
preference for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases
several years, oftener several months, or even weeks, days,
hours. . . ."
"
Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me," said all three of us at the same time.
The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.
"Yes, I know," he said, shouting louder than all of us; "you are talking
of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man
feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very
little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,--and it is
a true one,--'Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter
wormwood."'
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