"That's the great thing," he went on; "so that it doesn't matter,
really, that one doesn't understand. Besides, you do--enough."
"I understand my husband perhaps," she after an instant conceded.
"I don't understand your wife."
"You're of the same race, at any rate--more or less; of the same
general tradition and education, of the same moral paste. There
are things you have in common with them. But I, on my side, as
I've gone on trying to see if I haven't some of these things
too--I, on my side, have more and more failed. There seem at last
to be none worth mentioning. I can't help seeing it--I'm
decidedly too different."
"Yet you're not"--Charlotte made the important point--"too
different from ME."
"I don't know--as we're not married. That brings things out.
Perhaps if we were," he said, "you WOULD find some abyss of
divergence."
"Since it depends on that then," she smiled, "I'm safe--as you
are anyhow. Moreover, as one has so often had occasion to feel,
and even to remark, they're very, very simple. That makes," she
added, "a difficulty for belief; but when once one has taken it
in it makes less difficulty for action. I HAVE at last, for
myself, I think, taken it in. I'm not afraid."