"Ah! that is it!"
"But if I did care for all and singular the things you object to so much?"
"I should be sorry—really sorry—that I had spoken as I have done."
"Why?"
"Because it would, must, savour of impertinence. We, each of us, have a right to our own opinions. I should just hate to think that I have been forcing mine on any one; it would be a painful thing. Opinions, like boots, should fit the wearer—neither too narrow nor too wide, and possibly an allowance for stretching a point. To force an opinion would be a modernized version of the iron boot the torturers used to handle in the Inquisition days."
"But you expressed yourself"—she smiled at the recollection of it—"very strongly just now."
"Because I thought we were more or less on the same plane; were thinking in common. I hoped so."
"Tell me, will you, why you thought me different from other women: thought as you did of me?"
"Oh, come! Isn't that now—don't you think that rather hard on me?"
"Why?"