"Well?"
"No need of that rising inflection. If you were a fool I would not be here."
"I reckon not, as you say in the South."
"Yet you value your beauty, Miss Ainsley."
"Indeed I do, very highly."
"And you know equally well that I admire it greatly, but I value your power of companionship more. Why should not a man and woman entertain each other without compliments, conventionalities and sentimentalities?"
"No reason in the world if they are capable of such companionship. The trouble with so many is that they tumble into these things, especially the last, as if they were blind ditches in their path."
"That is excellent. Do you regard love as a blind ditch?"
"The deepest and worst of them all, judging from the experiences of very many."
"I am inclined to agree with you," he answered very quietly.