But except for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not hear her whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had heard so clearly.
"Why is it ?" he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon the table in impotent rage.

"It has been; why can't it be ?" Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectively rubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger.
"Isn't that the kind of question they used to ask oracles ?" she asked lazily--"Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague.

Well, I suppose because 'was' is as different from 'is' as 'as' is from 'shall be.' We are changed, Cousin; that's all." He pointed to his patent receiver, and grew angry.
"Oh, it isn't the receiver," she said, smoothing her curling hair; "it's us.

You don't understand me a bit--not now--and that's why you can't hear me.

Take my advice, Morris"-- and she looked at him sharply--"when you find a woman whom you can hear on your patent receiver, you had better marry her.