“Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only detachment? That can’t last, you know.”
He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. “Why not?”
“You’re too—well, distinctive. You’re too rare and beautiful a specimen. You’ll be grabbed.” She laughed softly.
“Who’ll grab me?”
“How should I know? Life, probably. Grab you and dry you up and put you in a case like the rest of us.”
“Perhaps that’s why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself.”
“Is that your fondest ambition?”
However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no sign of hurt in his reply.
“Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn’t like to be grabbed and dried up.”
“Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth, and eventually dried up and set in our proper places.”