Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/311

 "Indeed, I am not," I replied. "Intellectual people are detestable. They have pale faces and bad stomachs and bad livers, and if they are women their corsets are sure to be too tight, and probably black, and if they are men they are soft, which is worse. And they never by any chance know what it means to walk all day in the rain, or to roll around on the ground in the dirt. And, above all, they never fall in love with the Devil."

"They are tiresome," the Devil agreed. "If I were to marry you how long would you be happy?"

"For three days."

"You are wise," he said. "You are wonderfully wise in some things, though you are still very young."

"I am wise," I answered. "Being of womankind and nineteen years, I am more than ready to give up absolutely everything that is good in the world's sight, though they are contemptible things enough in my own, for love.