"Yes--I know what you think of it; you've sufficiently hinted how little
that is. But it's precisely because you regard it as rubbish that I now
appeal to you."
She continued to guard herself by her surprises. "Appeal? I thought you
were on the ground, rather," she beautifully smiled, "of dictation."
"Well, I'm that too. I dictate my terms. But my terms are in themselves
the appeal." I was ingenious but patient. "See?"
"How in the world can I see?"
"_Voyons_, then. Light or darkness, my imagination rides me. But of
course if it's all wrong I want to get rid of it. You can't, naturally,
help me to destroy the faculty itself, but you can aid in the defeat of
its application to a particular case. It was because you so smiled,
before, on that application, that I valued even my minor difference with
you; and what I refer to as my loss is the fact that your frown leaves
me struggling alone. The best thing for me, accordingly, as I feel, is
to get rid altogether of the obsession. The way to do that, clearly,
since _you've_ done it, is just to quench the fire. By the fire I mean
the flame of the fancy that blazed so for us this morning. What the
deuce have you, for yourself, poured on it? Tell me," I pleaded, "and
teach me."