“Sophronisba Two!” The doctor looked at, me piteously.

“Why didn’t you ask Alicia?” I persisted, inexorably.

“I did!” gulped the doctor.  “But she said she couldn’t.  She said, why didn’t I care for you instead of her?  You were so much better—­and—­and I’d be happier with you, for I’d have the most unselfish angel—­” he stopped miserably.

“Well?”

“Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I’d be a better and a more worth-while man.  I—­I think so much of you, Sophy, that I’m telling you the whole truth,” he finished.

“That’s why I’m going to keep on being friends with you—­better friends than ever,” I told him.

“You’re going to marry me, then, Sophy?”

“Didn’t you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends with you?”

“You won’t, then?”

“I won’t, then.”

“Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision,” he said, after a pause.  “We are so diametrically opposed it would seem inevitable we should marry each other.  Why, Sophy, we’ve got enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives.  For instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?”

“I close two, and leave two open.”

“Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine,” said the doctor, firmly.  “Do you use pillows?”

“Two.”

“None at all.  Sleep with your head flat.  How many blankets?”

“Two, and a comfort.”

“One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather,” said the doctor.  “Do you like a pipe?”

“It always makes me sick.  I peculiarly and particularly loathe and detest a pipe.”

“A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a man’s soul, an aid to meditation and repose.  I insist upon a pipe—­within moderation, of course.  Do you like parrots?  Sophy, are you capable of supporting a parrot?  I have already perceived your reprehensible fondness for cats.”  He looked at his scratched hand.

“I have always wanted a parrot.  I think they’re the most—­”

“Damnable brutes!” finished the doctor.  “Gad, I’d as lief live in the house with Sophronisba One!  It is not moral to like a parrot.  What do you think of stewed rhubarb?”

I made a wry face.  I abhor stewed rhubarb.  Somehow, it always makes me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china buttons down the back.  One way of punishing children for losing their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china buttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert.

“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are,” pronounced the doctor.  “It’s a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb.  Now, as to science:  what is your attitude toward evolution?”

“Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I refuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man.”