'Don't!' he murmured again, and moved forward decisively. They continued to walk in silence for some moments.
'How did you know that I was thinking of you?' she asked quietly, at length.
'I can always tell. There is a peculiar stony silence which comes over you at times, and I always feel its presence. Very often you remain without speaking for some time, but that is a different silence, and then without looking towards you I feel suddenly that the other has come—that the other has come ... Brenda, and that you are thinking about me!'
'You ought to be highly gratified!' she observed with a lamentable attempt at playfulness.
'And,' he continued in his gently deliberate way, 'when I look at you the same expression is always there. You are always striving to say something which is difficult. Don't say it, Brenda! If it is a question, don't ask it.'
'Why not?'
'Because those things are better left unsaid—those questions are better left unasked. The answer cannot be satisfactory.'
'Then you advocate going through life without ever understanding our fellow-creatures, without ever attempting to enter into each other's joys and sorrows, without pitying, sympathizing, or admiring?'
'No, I do not go so far as that. But I have no patience with people who are constantly fishing for sympathy, constantly confiding imaginary woes to others who have their own affairs to worry them. You should never seek trouble, Brenda. It comes only too naturally of its own free will,' he said in a quick anxious way, endeavouring to keep the conversation in a safe and general channel.
'It seems to me,' she answered after a long pause, 'that stoicism is your aim and creed. To endure, and simply to endure, is your estimate of life. He who endures best, who carries the brightest face before the world, utters the fewest complaints, and deceives most successfully his fellow-creatures, has lived the best life. You never try to see a meaning in it all—you never seek an ulterior motive which is only and solely for our good.'