CHAPTER VI
"Why don't men and women really like one another nowadays?" Connie asked Tommy Dukes, who was more or less her oracle.
"Oh, but they do! I don't think since the human species was invented, there has ever been a time when men and women have liked one another as much as they do today. Genuine liking! Take myself . . . I really like women better than men; they are braver, one can be more frank with them."
Connie pondered this.
"Ah, yes, but you never have anything to do with them!" she said.
"I? What am I doing but talking perfectly sincerely to a woman at this moment?"
"Yes, talking. . ."
"And what more could I do if you were a man, than talk perfectly sincerely to you?"
"Nothing perhaps. But a woman. . ."
"A woman wants you to like her and talk to her, and at the same time love her and desire her; and it seems to me the two things are mutually exclusive."
"But they shouldn't be!"
"No doubt water ought not to be so wet as it is; it overdoes it in wetness. But there it is! I like women and talk to them, and therefore I don't love them and desire them. The two things don't happen at the same time in me."
"I think they ought to."
"All right. The fact that things ought to be something else than what they are, is not my department."
Connie considered this. "It isn't true," she said. "Men can love
