Can't you guess why?"
"No," she said quietly. "I can't. I don't understand myself and my
shifts of feeling. It makes me miserable."
"Look here, Sophie girl," Carr reached over and taking her by the hand
drew her up on the low arm of his chair, "you're asking yourself a more
or less important question directly, and you're asking it of me
indirectly. Maybe I can help you. At least I can tell how I see it. You
have all your life before you. You want to be happy. That's a universal
human attribute. Sometime or other you're going to mate with a man. That
too is a universal experience. Ordinary mating is based on sex instinct.
Love is mostly an emotional disturbance generated by natural causes for
profoundly natural and important ends. But marriage and the intimate
associations of married life require something more substantial than a
mere flare-up of animal instinct. Lots of men and women aren't capable
of anything else, and consequently they make the best of what's in
them. But there are natures far more complex. You, Sophie, are one of
those complex natures. With you, a union based on sex alone wouldn't
survive six months. Now, in this particular case, leaving out the fact
that you can't compare Tommy Ashe with any other man, because you don't
know any other man, can you conceive yourself living in a tolerable
state of contentment with Tommy if, say, you didn't feel any more
passion for him than you feel for, say, old Standing Wolf over there?"
"But that's absurd," the girl declared.
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