“Not the world at large. But might I not change your views of it—in some respects?”
“Indeed I don’t see how you could. I think I had rather have my own view than any you might wish to substitute for it.”
In this humour she seemed more than ever a challenge to his manhood. She was armed at all points. She feared nothing that he might say. No flush of apprehension; no nervous tremor; no weak self-consciousness. Yet he saw her as a woman, and desirable.
“My views are not ignoble,” he murmured.
“I hope not. But they are the views of a man.”
“Man and woman ought to see life with much the same eyes.”
“Ought they? Perhaps so. I am not sure. But they never will in our time.”
“Individuals may. The man and woman who have thrown away prejudice and superstition. You and I, for instance.”
“Oh, those words have such different meanings. In your judgment I should seem full of idle prejudice.”
She liked this conversation; he read pleasure in her face, saw in her eyes a glint of merry defiance. And his pulses throbbed the quicker for it.