"No; I do not care to know. All that is not part of yourself. It is
outside you."

"And because you thought you knew me from those letters, you suffer me
to come here and be your disciple still? Yet you gave me back my
letters?"

"That was because they were written to me under a wrong impression."

"Will you have them back again?"

She shook her head.

"I know them all by heart," she said simply.

There was not the slightest sign of coquetry or flattery in her voice,
or in her eyes, which met his look with clear and steady gaze.

"I cannot ask you to read my portrait to me as you drew it from those
pictures."

"Why not?" She began to read him his portrait as readily as if she
were stating the conclusion of a problem. "I saw that you were young
and full of generous thoughts; sometimes you were indignant with
things as they are, but generally you laughed at them and accepted
them. It is, it seems, the nature of your friends to laugh a great
deal at things which they ought to remedy if they could; not laugh at
them. I thought that you wanted some strong stimulus to work; anybody
could see that you were a man of kindly nature and good-breeding. You