"Just like you! How do you know what it's meant to be? Have you had any private revelation from God about it?... Well, I tell you that I don't see any use in life if there isn't any pleasure in it—and that I'm going to enjoy my life, anyhow, and when I don't, it will be time to quit!"
"Laurence, you're a pagan," said Mary gravely.
"A pagan is better than a psalm-singing hypocrite, that wants to take all the pleasure out of life!"
"Do you mean me by that?" she enquired gently.
"No, I don't mean you! You're not a hypocrite, whatever else you are.... If you'd only unbend a little, once in a while, and let yourself have a good time, you'd be all right. But you got a lot of foolish ideas into your head when you were a girl—and I know who put them there too. And you hang onto them like grim death, you're so obstinate you won't ever give up an idea or anything else. You won't change—no matter if you see it makes me unhappy—"
He broke off suddenly, and for some moments they were both silent. They were now far beyond the town, out on the open prairie. Great fields of stubble from which the grain had been reaped, stretched on either side. In spite of the bright sun and the fresh wind, the outlook over these endless yellow-brown flats, broken by dull-green marsh or dark belts of new-turned soil, was not cheerful. Dreary, rather, and sombre was the prairie, its harvest yielded, waiting now for the sleep of winter. In the distance, a grey smudge on the horizon showed where lay the great sprawling smoky city. With his eyes fixed on this Laurence said:
"But I've known a long time that you don't really care anything about me."
"You shouldn't say such things—you know better.... It's only that we don't look at life in the same way."
"And you're contented to have it so! But I'm not. Why can't you see it more as I do, Mary? I think you would, if you cared about me."