'I will wait until then to hear it.'

'I thought you did not care for her accompaniments.'

'I don't, as a rule. But it does not signify much, either way.'

'I've heard you declare that everything, the most trivial, ought to have a decided significance in one direction,' said Anna, after a little pause of astonishment.

'So I have, I believe.'

'And I know you have a great contempt for inconsistency.'

'Yes.'

'You once said it was the brand of our human nature.'

'I must have been in a grandiloquent or dogmatic mood. Perhaps I often am. However, it is true. It is also its bane, and I confess I am guilty of it.'