"Maybe I have since I've given him my own. But he's an ass, just the same."
"He isn't and I won't have you abuse him. He's a real man and a particular friend of mine."
"Well, I can't say much for your taste, then. I'd like to punch his head. He'd bore me to death in ten minutes. Maybe, if you're so keen about him, you'll accompany him on that neat little stunt he's about to pull off. I have no desire to go to Peru with the creature."
"I'd love to, but you know perfectly well that I can't put a thing together except the ambitions of ladies who rescue cats. Getting Robert through the next six months of his life wouldn't bore me. It would overwhelm me."
"It'll swamp me—if I try."
"Begee!"
"Absolutely. He's behaved pretty well up to now because I understand him. But I don't understand how it feels to tramp through a jungle with nobody but natives you can't talk to, and sit all alone in a tent, through wonderful moonlight nights, smoking pipes and being happy. I never sat alone in a tent under tropic moonlight and I don't want to, with nothing but a pipe. I'd go raving mad."
"Nonsense. If you'd wanted to build bridges instead of write novels, you'd have done just the same."
"But I didn't want to build bridges. What's the good of them anyhow, messing up a perfectly good jungle? It's a fool point of view, that everlasting conquering difficulties and improving things."
"You know you don't mean that." Jean was looking at him now, with the smile gone from her eyes. No more than Martha did she like to hear the things she cared for derided. Instantly Herrick saw that he had gone too quickly to his goal.