Will you be my friend ?" "I am your honest servant, Augusta, and I think that such a one is the best of friends." "That's so; and yet no man can be true friend to a woman unless he is--more than friend.

Nature has writ it so." "I do not understand," I answered.
"You mean that you will not understand, and perhaps you are wise.

Why do you stare at that pavement?
There's a story written on it.

The old goddess of my people, Aphrodite, loved a certain Adonis--so runs the fable--but he loved not her, and thought only of his sports.

Look, she woos him there, and he rejects her, and in her rage she stabs him." "Not so," I answered.