"He is a good man. The strong man is bad. They fight, and the result is insignificance. Some day one of the two will get the better of the other."
"What will happen then?" she asked lightly, and still inclined to laugh.
"One or the other, or both, will die, I suppose," he answered.
"How very unpleasant!"
She did not at all understand what he meant. At the same time she could not help feeling that he was eminently a man to whom she would turn in danger or trouble. Girl though she was, she could not mistake his great admiration of her, and by degrees, as the winter wore on, she trusted him more, though he still repelled her a little, for his saturnine calm was opposed to her violent vitality, as a black rock to a tawny torrent. Griggs had neither the manner nor the temper which wins women's hearts as a rule. Such men are sometimes loved by women when their sorrow has chained them to the rock of horror, and grief insatiable tears out their broken hearts. But in their strength they are not loved. They cannot give themselves yet, for their strength hinders them, and women think them miserly of words and of love's little coin of change. If they get love at last, it is as the pity which the unhurt weak feel for the ruined strong.
Gloria was not above irritating Griggs occasionally, when the fancy took her to seek amusement in that way. She knew how to do it, and he rarely turned upon her, even in the most gentle way.
"We are good friends, are we not?" she asked one day, when it was raining and he was alone with her, waiting for her father to come in.
"I hope so," he answered, turning his impassive face slowly towards her.
"Then you ought to be much nicer to me," she said.
"I am as nice as I know how to be," replied Griggs, with fixed eyes. "What shall I do?"