"How do you know that?"

"I don't know it; I feel it."

"Feeling is woman's knowledge."

"And what is man's?"

"Do women think he has any?"

"Some men have knowledge--dangerous men, like you."

"In what way am I dangerous?"

"If I tell you, you will be more so. I should be foolish to lead you to
your weapons."

"You want no leading to yours."

It was, perhaps, almost an impertinence; but he felt she would not think
it so, and in this he accurately appraised her taste, or lack of taste.
Delicacy, reverence, were not really what she wanted of any man. Nigel
might pray to a pale Madonna; Isaacson dealt with a definitely blunted
woman of the world. And in his intercourse with people, unless indeed he
loved them, he generally spoke to their characters, did not hold
converse with his own, like a man who talks to himself in an unlighted
room.

She smiled.