“I cross? What a calumny! I was in my sweetest humor.”
She looked at him mischievously.
“If you call that your sweetest humor, all I can think is that you’re not as clever as you pretend to be.”
“I’m afraid I’m not. For example, I’m not clever enough to understand you—a little girl like you, scarcely half my age.”
“Am I really such a sphinx?”
“You are to me.”
“I like that,” she said, smiling, and gathering up the edge of the curtain in a frill; “I don’t want everybody to see through me. But you’re different.”
“How am I different?”
“You’re more a friend than other people—more a friend than anybody else I know. Tell me what you don’t understand about me, and I’ll explain it. I won’t leave myself a single secret.”
Though he was standing close to her, looking down at her, he suddenly dropped his voice to the key that was the lowest she could hear.