"I refuse to."
"You'll have to, or else become a nun. A Protestant nun, how funny! Because all men are the same."
"They are not!" I cried with fury, visualizing Robbie and the Stranger. "You shall not say it."
"Very well, then, I grant you I know one exception, priests apart, of course. He is a cousin of ours, on Mother's side, living down in the Gard, and a Protestant. A ridiculous creature—I don't mean because he's a Protestant—so ugly and gauche, and overgrown and lanky, with a pale face all covered with pimples. He blushes whenever you look at him, and can't look a girl straight in the face. He has never seen a woman, oh dear no! Does something else though, I expect. At any rate, all nice men are the same. If it is a fault at all, it is Nature's, not theirs. It is hardly a reason for hating Emile, that he is normal."
"It would be with me."
"Are you so sure? Suppose you loved a man, passionately, as you would—ah, you colour—and found out that he saw cocottes, would you fling him over for that?"
"It is a horrible, ridiculous supposition, so I refuse to discuss it. Englishmen are not like that."
"Vraiment? Your men know how to amuse themselves in Paris, I fancy."
"It is no good your insisting; I will not believe it. But it will haunt me, I shall never be able to cleanse my mind. Stop."
"Certainly. But as to Emile. Now then, Mary, forget the last ten minutes' talk, and believe me when I say this: I love him. As much as you would love a man, for all your different ideas on the other thing. You accept that?"