Leopold pondered in turn. “Tonight she—and on other nights, too—she—but I can’t give illustrations.”
Blynn looked at him. “I think I understand,” he brightened up. “She is just naturally moral.”
Leopold laughed quietly. “Moral! What a wretched word!”
“Oh, I don’t mean—”
“Don’t explain, friend Allen. I know you don’t mean the little prudential codes of playing safe and getting on in life. You mean that she has principles of conduct which she has thought out—”
“No,” explained Blynn. “I don’t mean that at all. She has principles of conduct, all right, but they are not thought out; they are instinctive. She plays fair by instinct; she couldn’t want to take advantage: not because she has reasoned the thing out, but because—because she just knows it isn’t the square thing to do. And then she has a powerful lot of self-respect without a trace of vanity. She—”
The two men interrupted each other continually. That was their method—tossing the idea back and forth.
“Yes,” Leopold took it up, “she fights reason without any reason at all, and won’t let herself go. She admits things with delicious candor; she has wants and owns up to them, but she won’t let herself satisfy them. She knows her instincts, but she holds them down.”
“Good!” Blynn commented. “She has character. Control—that’s the whole of character. But we’re talking very vaguely. Wants! Instincts! What sort? They may be friends or enemies.”
“Ha!” Leopold interjected gleefully. “That’s her very phrase! I can see your coaching there, old boy! And you’ve done a good job—so far.”