human
It was good of you to try to bring the wine and oil, he said.
gpt
But it was scarcely a quarrel; the king doesn't quarrel with his subjects.
human
Now you are making impossible all the things I came to say, she protested, with a note of earnestness in her voice that he had rarely heard.
gpt
Tell me what it was about.
human
I am afraid it wouldn't interest you in the least,
gpt
I suppose you are punishing me now for the 'giddy butterfly' pose which you once said was mine. Isn't there a possibility, just the least little shadow of a possibility, that I don't deserve to be punished?
human
You wouldn't understand. It was merely a disagreement in a matter of--a matter of business.
gpt
Perhaps I can understand more than you give me credit for, she countered, with an upflash of the captivating eyes.
human
Perhaps I can be hurt where you have been thinking that the armor of frivolity, or ignorance, or indifference is the thickest.
gpt
No, you wouldn't be hurt,
human
How can you tell? Can you read minds and hearts as you do your maps and drawings? Must I be set down as hopelessly and irreclaimably frivolous just because I have chosen to laugh when possibly another woman might have cried?
gpt
Oh, no, he denied again. Then he tried to meet her fairly on the new ground.
human
You mustn't accuse yourself. You are of your own world and you can't very well help being of it. Besides, it is a pleasant world.
gpt
But an exceedingly shallow one, you would say. But why not, Mr. Brouillard? What do we get out of life more than the day's dole of--well, of whatever we care most for? I suppose one ought to be properly shocked at the big electric sign Monsieur Bongras has put up over the entrance to his café; 'Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.' He meant it as a cynical gibe at the expense of Mirapolis, of course; but do you know it appeals to me--it makes me think.
human
I'm listening, said Brouillard.
gpt
Convert me if you can.
human
Oh, I don't know how to say it, or perhaps even how to think it. But when I see Monsieur Bongras's cynical little fling I wonder if it isn't the real philosophy, after all. Why should we be always looking forward and striving and trying foolishly to climb to some high plane where the air is sure to be so rare that we couldn't possibly breathe it?
gpt
Some of us have quit looking forward--quit trying to climb--and that without even the poor hope of reaping the reward that Poodles's quotation offers.