"
"Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy--not a dance or dinner
partner, or one of the men one meets about--everywhere from pillar to
post. Do you think me interesting to real men?--like you and Boots?"
"Yes," he said deliberately, "I do. I don't know how interesting,
because--I never quite realised how--how you had matured. . . . That was
my stupidity."
"Captain Selwyn!" in confused triumph; "you never gave me a chance; I
mean, you always were nice in--in the same way you are to Drina. . . . I
liked it--don't please misunderstand--only I knew there was something
else to me--something more nearly your own age. It was jolly to know you
were really fond of me--but youthful sisters grow faster than you
imagine. . . . And now, when you come, I shall venture to believe it is
not wholly to do me a kindness--but--a little--to do yourself one, too.
Is that not the basis of friendship?"
"Yes."
"Community and equality of interests?--isn't it?"
"Yes."
"--And--in which the--the charity of superior experience and the
inattention of intellectual preoccupation and the amused concession to
ignorance must steadily, if gradually, disappear? Is that it, too?"
Astonishment and chagrin at his misconception of her gave place to
outright laughter at his own expense.
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