“Why?”
“For any number of incontestable reasons. However, the principal reason is that she is very much in love with you, and she is not particularly happy about it. You’re such a dull dog.”
“Granting that, why should I engage myself to Maisie?”
“Because it would be good for you. It would be protection from the world. You’re going to marry Maisie sooner or later. Why not do it now and get the worry of it off your mind?”
“But, you double-dyed idiot, I’m not at all certain I’d be perfectly happy with Maisie.”
“I’ll dissipate your doubts. You wouldn’t be. No man ever is perfectly happy in the married state.”
“How do you know?”
“Observation and philosophical meditation. You would be perfectly happy with Maisie about eighty-five per cent of the time, and all you have to have in order to win is a controlling interest, or fifty-one per cent. All married life is a continuous adjustment of conflicting personalities. What you are seeking, we all seek—the wild, abandoned thrill of a love that will never grow old or stale or commonplace—a love that will punctuate your life with wonderful, breathless moments—moments that you would not miss, even though in claiming them you realized that sorrow and heartbreak might be the inevitable outcome of your yielding. My dear old friend, you paint pictures in water colors and see them turn to crude charcoal smudges. Dan, you seek the unattainable; when you have found her, she will have been married ten years to a barber!”
There fell between them a long and pregnant silence. Then:
“You spoke just now of—breathless moments, moments one would not miss, even though in claiming them one realizes that sorrow and heartbreak may be the inevitable outcome. Have you ever known such a breathless moment?”