"We seem to have much the same idea of her," said Winthrop. "I shouldn't have thought it possible," he added.
"That we should agree in anything?" said Margaret, with a faint smile.
"No, not that; but a woman so seldom has the same idea of another woman that a man has. And—if you will allow me to say it—I think the man's idea often the more correct one, for a woman will betray (confide, if you like the term better) more of her inner nature, her real self, to a man, when she knows him well and likes him, than she ever will to any woman, no matter how well she may know and like her."
"So you agree with me there too? Another surprise! What I have said is true enough, but women generally dispute it."
"What you have said is true, after a fashion," Margaret answered. "But the inner feelings you speak of, the real self, which a woman confides to the man she likes rather than to a woman, these are generally her ideal feelings, her ideal self; what she thinks she feels, or hopes to feel, rather than the actual feeling; what she wishes to be, rather than what she is. She may or may not attain her ideal; but in the mean time she is judged, by those of her own sex at least, according to her present qualities, what she has already attained; what she is practically, and every day."
"So you think it is her ideals that Garda has confided to me? What sort of an ideal was Lucian Spenser!"
"Garda is an exception; she has no ideals."
"Oh! don't make her out so disagreeable."
"I couldn't make her out disagreeable even if I should try," answered Margaret. "All I mean is that her nature is so easy, so sunny, that it has never occurred to her to be discontented; and if you are contented you don't have ideals."