“As I expected, only more so—more than I could have imagined. And you, what do you think?”
“It’s very different from what I expected. It seemed to me beforehand that you, even you, would ‘get on my nerves’ just a little at times. I didn’t expect you to appreciate—to feel my moods and to avoid doing—or is it that you simply cannot do—anything jarring. You have amazing instincts or else—” Marian looked at him and smiled mischievously, “or else you have been well educated. Oh, I don’t mind—not in the least. No matter what the cause, I’m glad—glad—glad that you have been taught how to treat a woman.”
“I see you are determined to destroy me,” Howard was in jest, yet in earnest. “I am not used to being flattered. I have never had but one critic, and I have trained him to be severe and uncharitable. Now if you set me up on a high altar and wave the censers and cry ‘glory, glory, glory,’ I’ll lose my head. You have a terrible responsibility. I trust you and I believe everything you say.”
“I’ll begin my duties as critic as soon as we go back to—to earth. But at present I’m going to be selfish. You see it makes me happier to blind myself to your faults.”
They rode in silence for a few moments and then she said:
“I wish I had your feeling about—about democracy. I see your point of view but I can’t take it. I know that you are right but I’m afraid my education is too strong for me. I don’t believe in the people as you do. It’s beautiful when you say it. I like to hear you. And I would not wish you to feel as I do. I’d hate it if you did. It would be stooping, grovelling for you to make distinctions among people. But——”
“Oh, but I do make distinctions among people—so much so that I have never had a friend in my life until you came. I have been on intimate terms with many, but no one except you has been on intimate terms with me. Oh, yes, I’m one of the most exclusive persons in the world.”
“That sounds like autocracy, doesn’t it?” laughed Marian. “But you know I don’t mean that. You think all the others are just as good as you are, only in different ways, whereas I feel that they’re not. You don’t mind vulgarity and underbreeding because you are perfectly indifferent to people so long as they don’t try to jump the fence about your own little private enclosure.”
“Oh, I believe in letting other people alone, and I insist upon being let alone myself. You see you make the whole world revolve about social distinctions. The fact is, isn’t it, that social distinctions are mere trifles—”
“You oughtn’t to waste time arguing with a prejudice. I admit that what I believe and feel is unreasonable. But I can’t change an instinct. To me some people are better than others and are entitled to more, and ought to be looked up to and respected.”