"I'm not."
I linked my arm in his, and tried to find out what was upsetting him.
"You've been having some senseless, needless quarrel with her...." I hazarded.
"How can two people quarrel when they've not a single point in common? Our lives are on parallel lines, continue them indefinitely and they'll never meet. Therefore—it's a mistake to bring the parallels so close together that one can see the other."
For a moment I wondered whether he had put his fortune to the test and received a rebuff.
"Does Sylvia think your lives are on parallel lines?" I asked.
"What experience or imagination do you think a girl like that's got? It never occurs to them that everybody's not turned out of the same machine as themselves, with the same ideas, beliefs, upbringing, position, means. D'you suppose Sylvia appreciates that she spends more money on dress in six months than I earn in a year? Can she imagine that I hate and despise all the little conventions that she wouldn't transgress for all the wealth of the Indies? The doctrines she's learnt from her mother, the doctrines she'll want to teach her children—can she imagine that I regard them as so much witchcraft that I wouldn't imperil my soul by asking any sane child to believe? I'm an infidel, a penniless, unconventional Bohemian, and she—well, you know the atmosphere of Brandon Court. What's the good of our going on meeting?"
"Nigel is neither infidel, unconventional, nor Bohemian," I said. "Moreover, he stands on the threshold of a big career...."
"I daresay," said the Seraph as I paused.
"Nigel was not invited. Gartside may be an infidel if he ever troubles to think of such things; he is certainly not penniless or Bohemian. He is a large-framed, large-hearted hero, with every worldly advantage a girl could desire. Gartside was not invited. No more were the others. You were."