He had meant to say something quite different, but anything would do so long as he controlled the situation.
“I wonder why?” Mary-Clare kept her face turned away.
“Well, you are so phenomenally keen. You know such a lot.”
“I used to snap up everything like a hungry puppy, Uncle Peter often said. I suppose I do now, Mr. Northrup, but I only know life as a blind person does: I feel.”
“That’s just it. You feel life. It isn’t coloured for you by others. You get its form, its hardness or softness, its fragrance or the reverse, but you fix your own colour. That’s why you’d be such a ripping critic. Will you let me read some of my book to you?”
“Oh! of course. I’d be so glad and proud.”
“Come, now, you’re not joking?”
The large golden eyes turned slowly and rested upon Northrup.
“I do not think I ever joke”––Mary-Clare’s words fell softly––“about such things. Why, it would seem like seeing a soul get into a body. You do not joke about that.”