"Aye, we must try. Lord-a-mercy on me, for my small head is filled with silliness, and my heart beats only for the vain pleasure of the moment. A hundred times since I have known you, Carus, I would have sworn I loved you--then something that you say or do repels me--or something, perhaps, of my own inconstancy--and only that intense curiosity concerning you remains. That is not love, is it?"
"I think not."
"Yet look how I set my teeth and drove blindly full tilt at Destiny when I thought you stood in peril! Do women do such things for friendship's sake?"
"Men do--I don't know. You are a faultless friend, at any rate. And on that friendship we must build."
"With your indifference and my vanity and inconstancy? God send it be no castle of cards, Carus! Tell me, have you, too, a stinging curiosity concerning me? Do you desire to fathom my shallow spirit, to learn what every passing smile might indicate, to understand me when I am silent, to comprehend me when I converse with others?"
"I--I have thought of these things, Elsin. Never having understood you--judging hastily, too--and being so intimately busy with the--the matters you know of--I never pursued my studies far--deeming you betrothed and--and----"
"A coquette?"
"A child, Elsin, heart-free and capricious, contradictory, imperious, and--and overyoung----"
"O Carus!"
"I meant no reproach," I said hastily. "A nectarine requires time, even though the sunlight paints it so prettily in all its unripe, flawless symmetry. And I have--I have lived all my life in sober company. My father was old, my mother placid and saddened by the loss of all her children save myself. I had few companions--none of my own age except when we went to Albany, where I learned to bear myself in company. At Johnson Hall, at Varick's, at Butlersbury, I was but a shy lad, warned by my parents to formality, for they approved little of the gaiety that I would gladly have joined in. And so I know nothing of women--nor did I learn much in New York, where the surface of life is so prettily polished that it mirrors, as you say, only one's own inquiring eyes."
I seated myself cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the sweet face on the bed's edge framed by the chintz.
"Did you never conceive an affection?" she asked, watching me.
"Why, yes--for a day or two. I think women tire of me."
"No, you tire of them."
"Only when----"
"When what?"
"Nothing," I said quietly.
"Do you mean when they fall in love with you?" she asked.
"They don't. Some have plagued me to delight in my confusion."