Still, there was a certain aloofness about him which she could not
conquer, try as she might. Just so far they were comrades--beyond,
Chip walked moodily alone. The Little Doctor did not like that
overmuch. She preferred to know that she fairly understood her
friends and was admitted, sometimes, to their full confidence.
She did not relish bumping her head against a blank wall that was
too high to look over or to climb, and in which there seemed to be
no door.

To be sure, he talked freely, and amusingly, of his adventures and of
the places he had known, but it was always an impersonal recital, and
told little of his real self or his real feelings. Still, when she
asked him, he told her exactly what he thought about things, whether
his opinion pleased her or not.

There were times when he would sit in the old Morris chair and smoke
and watch her make lacey stuff in a little, round frame. Battenberg,
she said it was. He loved to see her fingers manipulate the needle
and the thread, and take wonderful pains with her work--but once she
showed him a butterfly whose wings did not quite match, and he pointed
it out to her. She had been listening to him tell a story of Indians
and cowboys and with some wild riding mixed into it, and--well, she used
the wrong stitch, but no one would notice it in a thousand years. This,
her argument.

"You'll always know the mistake's there, and you won't get the
satisfaction out of it you would if it was perfect, would you?"
argued Chip, letting his eyes dwell on her face more than was good
for him.