“He wasn’t like everybody else,” she pursued. “I wonder—I wonder if you
are?”
“Wouldn’t that depend on what you mean by being like everybody else? I
don’t know that I get your standard.”
“Oh, men are so much alike. There’s no more difference between them than
between so many beans in a bottle.”
“I don’t see that. To my mind they’re all distinct from one another.”
“In little ways, yes. But when it comes to the big ways—”
“What are the big ways?”
She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.
“The big ways are those which indicate character, aren’t they? While the
little ones only make for habits. Men differ as to their habits, but in
character they’re all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at
most.”
“But can’t you say the same of women?”
“Very likely; only I don’t have to marry a woman.”
Since she had become personal, I ventured to do the same.
“Oh, so it’s a question of marriage!”
“What other question is there when a girl like me is twenty-three?
One has to decide that tiresome bit of business before one can tackle
anything else.”