"Do you mean that you thought that I laughed at you?"
"Did you not?"
"If I gave you cause to think that I did, I can only say, frankly and heartily, that I am very sorry for it."
"Now I am emboldened to be absurd again, and speak more parables. I have found a locked-up treasure—a sealed fountain. I long to open it, but cannot."
"Your figures are too deep for me. I can make nothing of them."
"Then I will sink to plain prose. I have a friend whose heart is full of warm feeling and earnest thought; but, out of reserve, or Heaven knows what, she will express it to nobody but one or two intimate companions. She tantalizes the rest with a bantering word; and sometimes, when she is most in earnest, she seems to be most in jest. But why do you smile?"
"Ask your friend Mr. Sharpe. He is your friend—is he not?"
"I suppose so, though he is old enough to be my father. But why should I ask him?"
"Because he once described to me a person very much like the one you have just described."
"Who was the person?"