"'Learned scholars' are not men, then, in your category?"
"Not the interesting wild kind that you warn me against."
"The man, woman, or 'learned scholar,' who has not a devil as well as an angel in his soul, a beast as well as a god, is too limited a creature to see life whole and big and round."
"Am I, then," she inquired with interest, "a devil and a beast as well as an angel and a goddess, do you think?"
"Mostly devil, you! I couldn't stand the angel-goddess combination. Even you, my girl, are wholly selfish; you would not stay with me for one day if it were not that I give you a home. Come, now," he invited, and evidently expected a protest against this assertion.
"Why, of course I shouldn't. Why would I?"
He looked rather blank at this, though privately he never failed to find her honesty refreshing.
"I never understood," she added, "that it was a question of affection between you and me, did you, my dear?"
"'Affection!'" he sneered bitterly. "Affection for ourselves!"
"Of course. You wouldn't give me a bright and happy home like this if you did not need me to wait on you thirty-six hours out of the twenty-four with a cheerful, Cheshire-cat smile, and all for my food, bed, and two new frocks and hats a year."