"Perhaps your experience has been limited," she suggested.
"Why don't you read?" he said. "There is a good library here. It contains all the books we don't want to read."
"I am tired of reading," Bernardine said. "I seem to have been reading all my life. My uncle, with whom I live, keeps, a second-hand book-shop, and ever since I can remember, I have been surrounded by books. They have not done me much good, nor any one else either."
"No, probably not," he said. "But now that you have left off reading, you will have a chance of learning something, if you live long enough. It is wonderful how much one does learn when one does not read. It is almost awful. If you don't care about reading now, why do you not occupy yourself with cheese-mites?"
"I do not feel drawn towards cheese-mites."
"Perhaps not, at first; but all the same they form a subject which is very engaging. Or any branch of bacteriology."
"Well, if you were to lend me your microscope, perhaps I might begin."
"I could not do that," he answered quickly. "I never lend my things."
"No, I did not suppose you would," she said. "I knew I was safe in making the suggestion."
"You are rather quick of perception in spite of all your book reading," he said. "Yes, you are quite right. I am selfish. I dislike lending my things, and I dislike spending my money except on myself. If you have the misfortune to linger on as I do you will know that it is perfectly legitimate to be selfish in small things, if one has made the one great sacrifice."