"I surprise you? People do not expect me ever to be either serious or--or
satirical, only look to me to be amiable and merry. 'Your only jig-maker,'
as Hamlet said--a sprightly Columbine. Am I rhetorical?"

"I don't believe you are really satirical, and please don't think me
impertinent if I say I do not like your irony. The other character suits
you, for, by nature, you are--are you not?--both merry and amiable. The
rest"--

"'The rest is silence.' * * * I can remember when mere living was
delightful. I didn't envy the birds. That sounds sentimental to a man,
doesn't it? But then that is the way a happy girl--a child--feels. I do
not envy the birds now, though I suppose it is silly for a worldly woman
to talk so."

"Whom, then, do you envy?"

There was a warm, frank light in her eyes. "I envy the girl I was then."

He looked down at her. She was turning a ring about on her finger
abstractedly. He hesitated to reply. He was afraid that he might say
something to press a confidence for which she would be sorry afterward.
She guessed what was passing in his mind.

She reached out as if to touch his arm again, but did not, and said: "I
am placing you in an awkward position. Pardon me. It seemed to me for a
moment that we were old friends--old and candid friends."

"I wish to be an old and candid friend," he replied firmly. "I honor your