"O look here, Mason!" Sanborn interrupted, "I can't listen to such calumny without protest."
"I don't mean to say that all this would be conscious. As a matter of fact it is innocent and unintentional. A woman does not deliberately say: 'I have a dimple, therefore I will smile.' She inherited the dimples and the smile from a long line of coquettes. Women are painfully alike from generation to generation. It's all moonshine and misty sky about their infinite variety."
"Suppose I grant that—who's to blame? mind you I don't grant it—but suppose I do, for argument."
"You are a lover and a fortunate man. You have in Isabel a woman of character. Mark you! These wiles and seductions on the part of women were forced upon them. I admit that they have been forced to use them in defense for a million years. Had they been our physical superiors unquestionably the lying graces would have been ours. At the same time it doesn't help me. I can't trust such past-masters in deceit, albeit they deceive me to my good."
"Are we not deceptive also? It seems to me the same indictment would hold regarding men."
"Undoubtedly—but we are not now under indictment. You asked me a question—I am answering it." This silenced Sanborn effectually. Mason refilled his pipe and then resumed:
"Again, I can't seem to retain a vital interest in any given case—that is to say, an exclusive interest."
"That is a relic of polygamy," Sanborn said. "I imagine we all have moments when we feel that old instinct tumbling around in our blood."
"I meet a woman today who seems to possess that glamour which the romantic poets and high-falutin novelists tell us the woman of our choice must have. I go home exulting—at last I am to reach the mystic happiness marriage is supposed to bring. But tomorrow I meet her and the glamour is faded. I go again and again, every spark of electric aureole vanishes; we get to be good friends, maybe—nothing more."
"Perhaps a friendship like that is the best plane for a marriage. Isabel and I have never pretended to any school-boy or school-girl sentiment."