THE SACRED FOUNT
know what they think! However, I repeat," I added, "that I shouldn't even then care. I don't mind admitting that she much interests me."
"There you are, there you are!" he said again.
"That's all that's the matter with her so far as I'm concerned. You see, at any rate, how little it need make her afraid of me. She's lovely and she's gentle and she's happy."
My friend kept his eyes on me. "What is there to interest you so in that? Isn't it a description that applies here to a dozen other women? You can't say, you know, that you're interested in them, for you just spoke of them as so many fools."
There was a certain surprise for me in so much acuteness, which, however, doubtless admonished me as to the need of presence of mind. "I wasn't thinking of the ladies—I was thinking of the men."
"That's amiable to me," he said with his gentle gloom.
"Oh, my dear Brissenden, I except 'you.'"
"And why should you?"
I felt a trifle pushed. "I'll tell you some other time. And among the ladies I except Mrs. Brissenden, with whom, as you may have noticed, I've been having much talk."
"And will you tell me some other time about that too?" On which, as I but amicably shook my head for no, he had his first dimness of pleasantry. "I'll get it then from my wife."
117
