“Evie, dear, your descriptions are very graphic. Do you know what I think?” He looked at me, smiling a little, but with grave eyes. “I think that you’re seeing Miss Harris through yourself. You’re putting your brain into her head and your heart into her body and then trying to explain her. That’s what’s making her such a puzzle.”
The waiter here produced a casserole with two squabs in it and presented it to Roger’s gaze as if it were a gift he was humbly offering. Roger looked at it and waved him away as if the gift was not satisfactory.
“They look lovely,” I called, and Roger smiled.
The squabs occupied him and my thoughts occupied me finally to find expression in a question:
“Roger, what is a gentleman?”
He looked surprised.
“A gentleman? What do you mean?”
“Just what I say—what is it?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. That’s just the point. There are lots of things that everybody—young people and fools—seem to understand and I don’t. One is the theory of vicarious atonement, one is why girls are educated to know nothing about marriage and children, which are the things that most concern them, and one is what makes a man a gentleman.”