Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

14. CHAPTER XIV (continued)

"Oh, I AM sorry. (Though I'm sure it's you who are exaggerating now.")

"Well now, I don't know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if you keep on you'll manage to drive away every friend I've got."

"That would be horrible of me. You KNOW I don't mean to Will, what is it about me that frightens Sam--if I do frighten him."

"Oh, you do, all right! 'Stead of putting his legs up on another chair, and unbuttoning his vest, and telling a good story or maybe kidding me about something, he sits on the edge of his chair and tries to make conversation about politics, and he doesn't even cuss, and Sam's never real comfortable unless he can cuss a little!"

"In other words, he isn't comfortable unless he can behave like a peasant in a mud hut!"

"Now that'll be about enough of that! You want to know how you scare him? First you deliberately fire some question at him that you know darn well he can't answer--any fool could see you were experimenting with him--and then you shock him by talking of mistresses or something, like you were doing just now----"

"Of course the pure Samuel never speaks of such erring ladies in his private conversations!"

"Not when there's ladies around! You can bet your life on that!"

"So the impurity lies in failing to pretend that----"

"Now we won't go into all that--eugenics or whatever damn fad you choose to call it. As I say, first you shock him, and then you become so darn flighty that nobody can follow you. Either you want to dance, or you bang the piano, or else you get moody as the devil and don't want to talk or anything else. If you must be temperamental, why can't you be that way by yourself?"