But it wasn't her problem and she seemed content to watch his progress with mild interest and wait for Lynn to rise from the table in anger and appeal to the cashier for aid. When that didn't happen and the young man straightened his shoulders and a look of elation came into his eyes the waitress' frown was replaced by a knowing smirk and a glance which said as plain as words: "Brother, you sure are a fast-working stud! Funny—I'd never have taken her for a round-heels."
Lynn stared down at the white table-top, picked up a salt shaker and set it down again. She let her gaze stray to the black portfolio and said in an even tone: "We could have discussed your work at the office, and I wouldn't have been in the least bit hasty. You can't just glance briefly at drawings and hope to form a considered artistic judgment. Sometimes you can't even—well, never mind. What I'm trying to say is I think I understand why you preferred to wait until I was through for the day. Office-pressures do interfere—they're a kind of strait jacket. For some people, anyway. I've done things just as—well, impulsive as you just did. Not once, but a dozen times."
He leaned toward her eagerly, all of the uncertainty gone from his gaze. "I sure behaved goofy," he said. "But I'm a shy sort of guy. I try my best to hide it but maybe it would be wiser to just accept it, go along with it. I've been told I'm giving it an importance it doesn't deserve."
"Of course you are," she said. "Some women like shy men. Perhaps sixty percent of them do, when the shyness has something very genuine behind it. Shyness has nothing to do with courage—or lack of it. It's often a blending of humility and strength. And humility is a very fine quality."
"That's the charitable way of looking at it, I guess," he said. "But I'm a great deal harder on myself at times. I started off shy—was that way when I was five—but I could have conquered it if I'd tried hard enough."
The boyish grin was back on his face again. "Sometimes I feel that way, and then again—I don't at all. I ask myself if it isn't a mistake to try to change people too much. There has to be a wide variety of human behavior, doesn't there? That's what makes the world go round. I've always liked something that André Gide once said: 'We are what we are, and we do what we do.' But perhaps you don't agree."
"One doesn't have to be fatalist to agree with that," she said.
His face sobered suddenly. "You should be burned up," he said. "Angry enough to give me a cold stare and refuse to talk to me. About the only thing I can say in my own defense is—I had no idea I'd seriously scared you. I guess that's because no woman has ever before mistaken me for a wolf on the prowl."
"I knew you were walking right behind me and I was afraid to look back," she said. "It was downright silly of me—a surrender to panic that doesn't make sense. I've only myself to blame."
"But why?" he asked, puzzled. "If you'd turned I'd have spoken to you, and introduced myself. I'd have explained that I just wanted to show you a few of my drawings, and if you had the evening free...."