"We are horribly alike; it hurts me sometimes when I suddenly find myself in you," she said to him one day, when he was in an expansive mood.
"I am much honoured by the discovery, but I fail to see where the likeness lies," was his reply.
"It is not very definite," she said, thoughtfully. "I think it must be because I feel your changes of mood so quickly. We laugh together at something, and everything seems so fearfully nice; and then, suddenly, I feel that something has sprung up between us, and I look up and I see that you feel it too, and all at once there is nothing to talk about. Haven't you ever noticed it?"
"I think you are an absurdly sensitive little girl," he said, smiling.
"Of course," she continued, without heeding his remark, "on the surface, no two people could be more unlike than we are. You are so awfully afraid of showing what you feel, for instance; but I always tell you everything, don't I?"
"My dear child, what nonsense! I am of the most artless and confiding nature; while you, on the contrary, never give yourself away at all. Why, you never tell me anything I really want to know! Whatever put such an idea into that curious head of yours?"
"Oh, don't!" she cried. "You make me feel quite hysterical! You have no right to upset all my views on my own character, as well as on yours. I know I am stupidly demonstrative. I have often blushed all over because I have told you things I never meant to tell any one. How can you say I am reserved? I only wish I were!"
"The few confidences of a reserved person are always rash ones," observed Paul. "The same might be said of the reflections of an impulsive person, or the impulses of a reflective one. It all comes from want of habit. You can't alter your temperament, that's all."
"But I can't believe that I am reserved," she persisted; "it seems incredible. And it makes us more alike than ever."
"Really, Katharine, I beg you to rid your mind of that exceedingly fallacious notion," said Paul, laughing. "I assure you I am to be read like a book."