Then I gave up and explained, "I was going to Europe to study," I said, "for no better reason than that I had nothing more interesting to do. Then my train was late and I should have missed my steamer anyway and—and then you came along and I thought I might just as well make the most of the situation. Now I can go down and tell the Ainslies they want to see me and all will be well."
After some meditating she said, "Are you as irresponsible as that about everything?"
"I don't see where all the irresponsibility comes in," I protested. "It isn't a sacred and solemn duty to follow out one's own plans, especially when they were only made to fill up the want of anything more worth while, and have fallen through already. I didn't care about going to Europe in the first place; then I couldn't—at least not at once; then I found something else that I did care about doing."
"Men," said Miss Tabor, "usually find a logical reason for what they do on impulse, without any reason at all."
"And the proof that women always act reasonably," I retorted, "is that they never give you the reason."
Instead of taking that for the flippancy it was, she thought about it for some minutes; or else it reminded her of something.
"Besides," I went on, "this is an adventure, as far as it goes; a little one, if you like, but still with all the earmarks of romance. It was unexpected, and it fits into itself perfectly—all the parts of the scene match like a picture-puzzle—and it happened through a mixture of chance and the taking of chances. It's just that snatching at casual excitement that makes things happen to people."
"Don't things enough happen to people without their seeking them out?" she asked.
"Not to most people; and not nowadays, if they ever did. Do you remember Humpty Dumpty's objection to Alice's face, that it was just like other faces—two eyes above, nose in the middle, mouth under? Well, that's the only objection I have to life; days and doings are too regular, too much according to schedule. Why is a train less romantic than a stage-coach? Because it runs on time and on a track; it can't do anything but be late. But the stage-coach dallies along through the countryside, with inns and highwaymen, and pretty girls driving geese to market, and all the chances of the open road. The horse of the knight-errant was better still, and for the same reason."
"I don't think anything very much has ever happened to you," she said slowly.