"Oh!... Do you mean that you are doing it because of--to--to avoid the--that is, on account of the articles?"
"Oh, not the articles!--no! That's just what I don't mean. I've never thought of the articles! I don't think of you that way at all...."
She stopped precipitately, somehow divining that she was mysteriously wounding him. And then suddenly she understood that that was the way he thought of himself, exactly; that he, who unconsciously moved mountains by his gentleness, somehow saw himself only in the light of his "terrible" (but still unpublished) articles. It was as if he reckoned himself as either an article-writer, or nothing....
"Though it's true," said Cally, gently, with hardly any pause at all, "that through most of the time I've known you I've thought of you ... as a hard man ... terribly uncompromising."
His, it was clear, was not a tongue that spoke easily about himself. He finished putting a flower-box into the window of the new Works, before he said:
"I hope we needn't trouble now about anything at all that's past."
"That's what I hope, too ... more than you could. And besides--I've always liked you best when you were gentle. And ... it's because of what you've taught me--at those times--that I'm doing this to-day."
Again he turned his singularly lucid gaze full upon her; and now his look was absolutely startled. Color was coming into his face. His short, crisp hair, which had been parted so neatly an hour ago, stood rumpled all over his head, not mitigating the general queerness of his appearance. And yet his mouth wore a smile, humorous and disparaging.
"May I ask what you consider that I've taught you?"
"Everything I know," said Cally, lacing a pencil between her fingers.