"You're not going to make any move until spring—toward this architect friend, I mean?"
"I've no reason to think—at least not much reason—that she'll take me."
"Meanwhile—why not perfect yourself in the trade you already almost know?"
"What's that?"
"I'm going to pay a man a hundred and fifty dollars a month to help me at the laboratory—exactly the work you did—and he'll do it no better, if as well."
Courtney flushed with pleasure at this praise. "Really?" she said. "You mean that?"
His expression forewarned her he was about to touch on the impossible subject. "I can't comprehend, now that it's over," said he, "how I was such an ass as to stick to the notion that women haven't brains when I had, right before me, proof to the contrary."
"Meaning me?" said she with amused eyes.
"Meaning you," replied he with a laugh. Then seriously, "And if you'll let me say so, the reason I blame myself for everything is, I've seen that my stupid ignorance of you was at the bottom of it all."
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "We were both brought up very stupidly for marriage. But then—who isn't? No wonder marriage is successful only by accident."