"Yes."
"Well, then."
"People stop to think for different reasons."
"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."
"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me why."
"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus; "and as tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could, and hurt me the least."
"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry, her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at all."
"Why, then?"
"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.
"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is just what I said."