"That you had no room in your scheme of things for ordinary
marriage. Of course you were talking nonsense. I beg your pardon."

"Will you kindly explain what you mean!"

"I will if you will sit down so that I may talk to you on my own
level. You see, your determination not to marry struck me very much
at the time because it voiced my own--er--determination also. I said
to myself, 'Here are two people sufficiently original to wish to
escape the common lot.' I thought about it a great deal. And then an
idea came. It was, I admit, the inspiration of a moment. But it
grew. It certainly grew."

Desire sat down again and folded her hands over her knees.

"I will listen."

"It is very simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I
think, the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we
are filled with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious.
Take our case. Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the
same thing. A perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to
me. Yet when I suggest this way you jump up and rush away."

"I haven't rushed yet."

"No. But you were going to. And all because you cannot be logical.
No woman can."

His listener brushed this away with a gesture of impatience.