"Why should we?"
"Well, why shouldn't you?"
"Loafing, eh?"
"No, not loafing. But you could transfer your work to San Francisco, couldn't you?" Martin smiled a deep, wise, long-enduring smile.
"Oh, you'd get me a job, I suppose?" he asked. "I love the way you women try to run things," he added, "but I guess I'll paddle my own canoe for awhile longer!"
"There is no earthly reason why you shouldn't live here," Alix said, pleasantly.
"There is no earthly reason why we should!" Martin returned. He was annoyed by a suspicion that Alix and Cherry had arranged between them to make this plan the alternative to a divorce. "To tell you the honest truth, I don't like Mill Valley!"
Alix tasted despair. Small hope of preserving this particular relationship. He was, as Cherry had said, "impossible."
"Well, we must try to make you like Mill Valley better!" she said, with resolute good-nature. "Of course, it means a lot to Cherry and to me to be near each other!"
"That may be true, too," Martin agreed, taking the front seat again for the drive home. He told Cherry later that he liked Alix, and Alix was interested enough in keeping him happy to deliberately play upon his easily touched self-confidence. She humoured him, laughed at his jokes, asked him the questions that he was able to answer, and loved to answer.