“You only see me in my struggle to overcome a natural defect. Miss Graham,—just as a coward assumes the bully to conceal his poltroonery; you regard in me the mock audacity that strives to shroud a most painful modesty.”
She looked full at him for an instant, and then burst into a loud and joyful fit of laughter, in which he joined without the faintest show of displeasure. “Well, I believe you are good-tempered,” said she, frankly.
“The best in the world; I am very seldom angry; I never bear malice.”
“Have you any other good qualities?” asked she, with a slight mockery in her voice.
“Yes,—many; I am trustful to the verge of credulity; I am generous to the limits of extravagance; I am unswerving in my friendships, and without the taint of a selfishness in all my nature.”
“How nice that is, or how nice it must be!”
“I could grow eloquent over my gifts, if it were not that my bashfulness might embarrass me.”
“Have you any faults?”
“I don't think so; at least I can't recall any.”
“Nor failings?”