When we were seated again, Langdon, after a few reflective puffs at his cigarette, said: “So you're about to marry?”
“I hope so,” said I. “But as I haven't asked her yet, I can't be quite sure.” For obvious reasons I wasn't so enamored of the idea of matrimony as I had been a few minutes before.
“I trust you're making a sensible marriage,” said he. “If the part that may be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be something to make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass.”
“Very sensible,” I replied with emphasis. “I want the woman. I need her.”
He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it. Presently he said: “And she?”
“I don't know how she feels about it—as I told you,” I replied curtly. In spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. “By the way, Langdon, what's the name of your architect?”
“Wilder and Marcy,” said he. “They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell 'em exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people—they keep to the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out of it and against those who do go out of it.”
“I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day,” said I.
“Oh, you're in a hurry!” He laughed. “And you haven't asked her. You remind me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked him: 'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the fish one likes whether it likes one.'”
I flushed. “You'll pardon me, Langdon,” said I, “but I don't like that. It isn't my attitude at all toward—the right sort of women.”