"I should like to be the one to make all others see—any fools or brutes who don't," he said.
"I don't want anybody made to see."
"Of course you don't. Well, there isn't one anywhere about worthy to think of you at all—not a man Jack of us—including me."
"And yet," Mary said, almost pitifully, "I have liked men to think about me! It's been so new, and interesting. What harm have men done me, that I should avoid them, just because they are men? Are they all so much worse than women, I wonder? Oughtn't we to be nice and sweet to them? It would seem so ungrateful to be cold, because they are so very, very kind to us. At least, that is what I felt till now—I mean till quite lately. Men interested me, because they seemed rather mysterious, so different from us; and I wanted to find out what they were really like, for I've been with women all my life. I wish now—that is, I hope I haven't behaved in ways to make people misunderstand?"
"Only fools, as I said before."
"But—what have I done to make the fools misunderstand? You must tell me!"
"Nothing serious. Only—well, you have gone about with a queer lot sometimes."
"Men or women?"
"Madame d'Ambre, for instance."
"Yes; but I haven't talked to her for a long time now."