"Exactly what I should have thought. But what living man is too clever to be an idiot? I never met the gentleman and never hope to."
"You looked upon me as the eternal spinster?"
"I looked upon you as Hermione Lester, a great creature, an extraordinary creature, free from the prejudices of your sex and from its pettinesses, unconventional, big brained, generous hearted, free as the wind in a world of monkey slaves, careless of all opinion save your own, but humbly obedient to the truth that is in you, human as very few human beings are, one who ought to have been an artist but who apparently preferred to be simply a woman."
Hermione laughed, winking away two tears.
"Well, Emile dear, I'm being very simply a woman now, I assure you."
"And why should I be surprised? You're right. What is it makes me surprised?"
He sat considering.
"Perhaps it is that you are so unusual, so individual, that my imagination refuses to project the man on whom your choice could fall. I project the snuffy professor—Impossible! I project the Greek god—again my mind cries, 'Impossible!' Yet, behold, it is in very truth the Greek god, the ideal of the ordinary woman."
"You know nothing about it. You're shooting arrows into the air."