"Of course it's always clear—if we're honest."
"And every one knows what this wonderful 'best' in himself is and goes trotting on alone and grabs it?"
"Extremist! No one trots right along and grabs anything. You know what I mean, Begee. Life's like a story or an editorial. You don't go on blindly putting down words without knowing what you're aiming at. You know the points you want to make and you make them. You have your climax before you begin."
"Good Lord! Do you believe that?"
"Yes. I think I do. I know it sounds terribly high-falutin but lots of things do when you really get them in words. Life isn't just a jumbled mess. It must make for something. If it isn't a road we build going along, what on earth is it?"
Herrick's hands dropped from Jean's shoulders.
"It's a pendulum. That's all it is, at the best. That's all, Jean. We swing through the arc, back and forth, from one higher point to another and through all the lowest points between. When we reach one end of the arc we are pushed back and do it all over again, and after a while the arc grows shorter, and we hang there at the will of—what? Fate or chance or our own limitations."
"Oh no, Begee, no. No. You're tired and you don't really believe it yourself. It's a corking good image and we'll get it into the novel somewhere, only Robert won't say it. But as philosophy, it doesn't swing. I'm not hung on a wire by Fate or anything else and when I get to the end of my arc I can go higher. Which may be bad mathematics or physics or whatever it is, but it's good sense and gets things done in this world."
Jean laughed as she laid hold of Herrick's shoulders and shook him gently.
"It's you who are the baby. That's what you are. A baby that gets a spiritual tummy-ache every time he strikes a snag."