"We all do that, you know."
"Oh, yes."
"Well, but do you mean we've nothing left to quarrel about? Has it really come to such a pass?"
"I do." He spoke almost solemnly. It was a little like the "I do" of the marriage rite.
"Barrett! Good heavens! What's the world coming to?"
"I don't know," he replied naïvely. "I only know there are no grounds left. I've capitulated, you see, at every point."
"Tut, tut!"
"Every point!" he insisted. No compromise would do. It might amaze her, might snatch the ground from under her feet; he would admit, at last, no compromise.
She grew whimsical, then a new earnestness creeping into her voice: "You know," she said, "I've come to suspect some of this talk of being 'advanced.' I mean"—for she felt his enquiring gaze—"I've come at length to suspect that in just going ahead.... Barrett, for heaven's sake help me out!" For once in her life—and it was surely a portentous symptom—Miss Whitcom was groping.