"Of course," she said, with her soft, throaty chuckle, "if you really feel you have to…. But I haven't any six generations forcing ME. Or do you think yours will take me in hand?"
"It isn't a joke to me," he said. "How would you like it if the unexpected—chance—had been carefully weeded out of your future?… It makes things mighty flat and uninteresting. I'm all wrapped up in family traditions and precedents so I can't wriggle—like an Indian baby…. Even THIS wouldn't be so rotten if it were myself they were thinking about. But they're not. I'm only an incident in the family, so far as this goes…. It's Bonbright Foote VIII they're fussing about…. It's my duty to see to it there's a Bonbright Foote VIII promptly."
She didn't sympathize with him, or call him "poor boy," as so many less natural, less comprehending girls would have done.
"I haven't the least idea in the world," she said, "whether I'll ever want to marry you or not—and you can't have a notion whether you'll want me. Suppose we just don't bother about it? We can't avoid each other—they'll see to that. We might as well be comfortably friendly, and not go shying off from each other. If it should happen we do want to marry each other—why, all right. But let's just forget it. I'm sure I sha'n't marry you just because a lot of your ancestors want me to…. Folks don't fall in love to order—and you can put this away carefully in your mind—when I marry it will be because I've fallen in love."
"You're very like your father," he said.
"Rushing in where angels fear to tread, you mean? Yes, dad's more direct than diplomatic, and I inherit it…. Is it a bargain?"
"Bargain?"
"To be friends, and not let our mammas worry us…. I like you."
"Really?" he asked, diffidently.
"Really," she said.