"I like lots of air," explained the girl. "And it doesn't do me any harm to be cold."
"How about getting a chill?" inquired Stephen.
"Oh, I never have such things. They don't exist. At least they don't unless one encourages them," she replied.
He smiled, rather interested, and pleased to linger, since she evidently understood that he was using no arts to scrape an acquaintance. "That sounds like Christian Science," he ventured.
"I don't know that it's any kind of science," said she. "Nobody ever talked to me about it. Only if you're not afraid of things, they can't hurt you, can they?"
"Perhaps not. I suppose you mean you needn't let yourself feel them. There's something in the idea: be callous as an alligator and nothing can hit you."
"I don't mean that at all. I'd hate to be callous," she objected. "We couldn't enjoy things if we were callous."
Stephen, on the point of saying something bitter, stopped in time, knowing that his words would have been not only stupid but obvious, which was worse. "It is good to be young," he remarked instead.
"Yes, but I'm glad to be grown up at last," said the girl; and Stephen would not let himself laugh.
"I know how you feel," he answered. "I used to feel like that too."