'Noakes, you are disillusioning, and incorrect, and moreover traitorous to your kind.'
'Not a bit of it; you overpraise my kind.'
'But—let's be definite—you know he may be all—'
'And may not always have been; in which connection he may not be expected to enlighten the dreaming lady, may he?'
'I think he may.'
'But he may possess a certain masculine trait, a kind of secretiveness.'
'Secretive,' she mused. 'Then he is a bit of a coward, I think.'
'He would be a cad,' Noakes said quickly, 'to tell her things that would pain her.'
'Understanding will come sooner or later,' she said oracularly. 'It is better to become accustomed to a thing than have it come as a revelation.'
'I see,' Noakes said; 'like taking a tonic in midwinter to fend off spring fever. You forget,' he continued in a different tone, looking at her speculatively, 'that understanding may never come.'