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MARIE
XVIISometimes we helped each other to an understanding in some such way as this.
One evening, after I had helped her off with her stockings, Marie said: 'I have often wondered how it is that I have never felt ashamed before you.'
'Why should you be ashamed? You love me, don't you?'
'Yes, of course, that is the first and important reason. But it is not all. No, you—yourself, have helped me a good deal. Much more than I think you know of.'
'How?'
'Because you have always treated me with such sweet respect. You have never looked at me with greedy eyes or touched me with insolent hands. You have never made me think of you as a male. And yet—thank Heaven—a man you are.'
'What you are saying, Marie, is perhaps true enough. But if we are quite to understand why you have never been ashamed with me, there is another point to be considered. Tell me honestly: had you not been so sure of your own loveliness; if, for example, you had suffered from any hidden defect, would you in that case have been equally frank? Of course you wouldn't. If your body from top to toe, inside and out, had not been so fair, so sweet and shining, then you would have been ashamed. First of all you loved me; then I was not exactly a ruffian, and in addition you were in every way the most beautiful little Sunday-
