"I trust you're making a sensible marriage," said he. "If the part that may
be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be something to
make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass."
"Very sensible," I replied with emphasis. "I want the woman. I need her."
He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it.
Presently he said: "And she?"
"I don't know how she feels about it--as I told you," I replied curtly. In
spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. "By the way,
Langdon, what's the name of your architect?"
"Wilder and Marcy," said he. "They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell
'em exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly
conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic
and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people--they keep to
the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out of it and
against those who do go out of it."
"I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day," said I.
"Oh, you're in a hurry!" He laughed. "And you haven't asked her. You remind
me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked him:
'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the fish one
likes whether it likes one.
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