"You're very confident."
"I am absolutely confident."
"'She travels fastest who travels alone,'" misquoted Joan.
"What is the good," said Ashe, "of traveling fast if you're going round in a circle? I know how you feel. I've felt the same myself. You are an individualist. You think there is something tremendous just round the corner and that you can get it if you try hard enough. There isn't—or if there is it isn't worth getting. Life is nothing but a mutual aid association. I am going to help old Peters—you are going to help me—I am going to help you."
"Help me to do what?"
"Make life coherent instead of a jumble."
"Mr. Marson—-"
"Don't call me Mr. Marson."
"Ashe, you don't know what you are doing. You don't know me. I've been knocking about the world for five years and I'm hard—hard right through. I should make you wretched."
"You are not in the least hard—and you know it. Listen to me, Joan. Where's your sense of fairness? You crash into my life, turn it upside down, dig me out of my quiet groove, revolutionize my whole existence; and now you propose to drop me and pay no further attention to me. Is it fair?"