Her eyes were fixed on him, expressionless, considering. The slightest smile edged her lips.
"He is young—and nice.... I don't know how much of a man he may become.... I know nothing about him, and haven't studied him very minutely yet."
"You will—before you marry him."
"I may not.... A girl often misuses a microscope. I think I have, frequently. Do you remember King Gama's song?—
"'And interested motives
I'm delighted to detect!'
"No, Jim; my snooping days are about over. Dissection wearies; the clinic is a bore. I'm beginning to be content with the surface of things; I'm tending toward impressionism and the elimination of detail—toward the blessed serenity of stupidity. There is rest, there."
"Rest," he repeated, smiling. "Of what are you already tired?"
"I am tired of intelligence. It's too exacting. It forms a liaison with conscience, and affronts inclination. I'm tired of rule and precept with which an occult and inborn tyranny shackles me. I'm tired of more than that—but isn't that sufficient to fatigue a girl?"
"Heavy chains," he said, looking at the figures on the carpet, tracing them with an incurious eye.
"So I think I'll file away a few links."