"How kind you are!" he said, softly. "How you make the best of one, even at one's worst! But oh, how bitterly you make me wish that I were different!"
"I'm very glad that you're not," said Naomi; "everybody else is different."
"But I would give my head to be like everybody else—to be hail-fellow with those men out at the shed, for instance. They wouldn't have stood still this morning."
"Wouldn't you as soon be hail-fellow with me?" asked the girl, ignoring his last sentence.
"A million times sooner, of course! But surely you understand?"
"I think I do."
"I know you do; you understand everything. I never knew anyone like you, never!"
"Then we're quits," said Naomi, as though the game were over. And she closed her eyes. But it was she who began it again; it always was.
"You have one great fault," she said, maternally.
"I have a thousand and one."