1 Japanese Print
1 Indifferently Good Caricature in Crayon.
REMARKS:
Somehow the sight of a man being paternal arouses in woman a protective instinct on her own part; an indulgent affection compounded of amusement and gratitude.
PROMISE ME YOU WON’T
You are uncomfortable. You are both sitting on one of the sofas, but with a great difference of mien. She is curled up among the cushions—she is a supple little thing, and seems to be comfortable, but you are leaning forward with your hands clasped between your knees, which are rather ludicrously raised from the floor because the couch sags. Anyway, it is never becoming to you to argue; your face grows red and you look more clumsy than ever. She is enjoying the new sensation of seeing you ill at ease, and because of her. In the office it is so often the other way around.
“But I don’t think it is good for you,” you are saying.
“I don’t see why.”
“It isn’t good for anyone to be too much alone.” Speak doggedly in the tone of one who has made the same remark at intervals all his life.
“Oh no,” she protests. “I think it depends a lot on the person. I think everybody ought to have privacy. I don’t see how the people here do without it, I really don’t. I have to keep my shades down all the time, living in the basement like this. Even at that the girls are always coming in—a couple of people have keys.”