We can only deal with one that is one." "Surely," Maud replied.

"But if it's an innocent one--" "Doesn't it depend a good deal," Mrs.Dyott asked, "on what you call innocent ?" "You mean that the adventures of innocence have so often been the material of fiction?
Yes," Voyt replied; "that's exactly what the bored reader complains of.

He has asked for bread and been given a stone.

What is it but, with absolute directness, a question of interest or, as people say, of the story?
What's a situation undeveloped but a subject lost?
If a relation stops, where's the story?
If it doesn't stop, where's the innocence?
It seems to me you must choose.

It would be very pretty if it were otherwise, but that's how we flounder.