"Well, it's certainly wild enough."
"But, if we had been, it might have been easier than it was. I mean that—in some ways we would have been so very far apart that it would have been useless to try and meet in those ways at all. But Roger and I weren't far apart. We both wanted the same thing—a beautiful world, but we tried to find this beauty in different places and there are no different places. There's only one Beauty everywhere."
"What in the name of Heavens ARE you talking about, Annie?"
Anne began to feel a little helpless but persisted.
"I mean that nearly all the fuss and noise in the world comes from people quarreling about the way to get things, because, nearly everybody wants the same thing really when you get right down to it. They only quarrel about their own pet way of getting it. Roger thinks that if he can make the whole world happy in a lump, then every individual will be happy. And I thought that if every individual was happy then the whole world would be happy. We——"
"I don't know what you're trying to get at, Annie, and I don't believe you do yourself," her father interrupted, but so kindly that Anne forgave his not understanding. After all, she had not understood herself, before the mountains, and it was not clear in detail yet. "I suppose it's something very modern and educated. But common sense is a lot older than education and these up-to-date folderols. When a man and a woman's married they can't expect to agree about everything. Me and mamma never had scarce an idea in common, did we, ma?"
"No. We never agreed about things. I never knew any married folks that did. But it doesn't make much difference if you don't talk about them. As long as you keep still, things go pretty smooth. I guess our home was as comfortable as most homes."
"But I don't want it to be as comfortable as most homes. Most homes are terrible places and I want a real home or none at all."
"Well, I must say, I think there's something to be said for Roger," Hilda conceded. "Do you think a home all by yourself is going to be a 'real home'?"
Anne's throat tightened and she could not answer.