“It’s very simple. If their son hadn’t married you, I undoubtedly would have. And it would have been a gigantic blunder.”
“How do you know you would have?”
“I’m damned if we could have avoided it.”
“In other words, those strong instincts you were talking about,—good or bad,—would have taken that funeste direction,—the direction of bringing us smack up against each other for better or worse.”
“For a while it would have been heaven on earth. Then hell.”
“Why?”
He still avoided her eyes. “Because strong things must clash. Because you and I don’t permanently need each other; we’re too self-reliant.”
His unwillingness to look at her roused a demon. “I wonder if you believe that.”
“Must one always say all one believes?”
She ignored the question and he continued. “Marriage, to be successful, must be entered into by one leading person and one following person. We were each born to lead. We could never play on the same team, but as captains of opposing teams we can be profoundly chummy . . . If the other element had been allowed in, the chumminess in the crucible would have flared up into a white flame, but the contents of the crucible would have been reduced to ashes.”