"Because you know quite well it was not a matter of choice."

"Rather a matter of _manque de mieux_?" he suggested coolly.

She turned from her contemplation of the crowd below. "I am not going to
contradict you," she said, "I never foster _amour propre_ in a man. It is
always a plant of hardy growth."

"'Hardy' is not the word," he declared. "Say 'rank,' and you will be
nearer the mark. I fully endorse your opinion. We are a race of
conceited, egotistical jackanapeses, and we all think we are going to
lick creation till a pretty woman comes along and makes us dance to her
piping like a row of painted marionettes. But is the pretty woman any
the happier, do you think, for tumbling us thus ruthlessly off our
pedestals? I sometimes wonder if the sight of the sawdust doesn't make
her wish she hadn't."

The drawl in his voice was very apparent as he uttered the last sentence.
His chin was propped upon his hands. He was obviously studying her with a
deliberate criticism that observed and considered every detail.

But his scrutiny held without embarrassing her. She met it with no
conscious effort.

"I can't bear cynicism," she told him frankly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Cynics--real cynics--never can."

"But I am not a cynic."