Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.

“Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!” he muttered, closing the book and pushing it from him across the table; “love, as usual, grossly out of proportion to the ensemble.  That theory of the earth’s rotation, you know; all these absurd books are built on it.  Why do men read ’em?  They grin when they do it!  Love is only the sixth sense—­just one-sixth of a man’s existence.  The other five-sixths of his time he’s using his other senses working for a living.”

Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it.

“In these novels,” continued Gerard, irritably, “five-sixths of the pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors. . . .  Does it act that way in real life?”

“Not usually,” said Selwyn.

“Nobody else thinks so, either.  Why doesn’t somebody tell the truth?  Why doesn’t somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins to tag after her when business hours are over?  A respectable man is busy from eight or nine until five or six.  In the evening he’s usually at the club, or dining out, or asleep; isn’t he?  Well, then, how much time does it leave for love?  Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man’s entire life.”

He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.

“If I had time,” he said, “I could tell them how to write a book—­” He paused, musing, while the confident smile spread.  Selwyn stared at space.

“What does a young man know about love, anyway?” demanded his brother-in-law.

“Nothing,” replied Selwyn listlessly.

“Of course not.  Look at Gerald.  He sits on the stairs with a pink and white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another.  That’s wholesome and natural; and that’s the way things really are.  Look at Eileen.  Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?”

“Naturally not,” said Selwyn.

“Correct.  Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper emotions to a child like that.  What does she know about anything?  Love isn’t a mere emotion, either—­that is all fol-de-rol and fizzle!—­it’s the false basis of modern romance.  Love is reason—­not a nervous phenomenon.  Love is a sane passion, founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil.  That’s what love is; the rest!”—­he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously, and pushed it farther away—­“the rest is neuritis; the remedy a pill.  I’m going to bed; are you?”