Her little painful smile tantalized him. He said involuntarily: "You mock at everything I say."
"Not at you," said Pen. "At myself!"
"I don't understand you," he complained.
"And you have known so many girls!" said Pen, drawing down the corners of her lips.
"Yes," he said. "But never one like you. In town they seem to be cut out pretty much to a pattern. Some well cut, some badly. But all the same pattern."
Pen thought: "He's a good-natured sort. He thinks I expect to hear this sort of thing."
There they sat side by side on the big sofa in the seductive half light of the great room—but something was the matter. They made no progress. Perhaps having desired this moment so much, the realization of it frightened them. With too much feeling they were dumb; and they did not know each other well enough to be comfortably silent together. So each made various attempts to start something which only resulted in utter banality. They found themselves talking as primly as a couple in an old-fashioned romance. The sources of laughter were frozen up. And the more self-conscious they became, the stiffer grew their tongues.
It was chiefly Pen's fault. She got the notion in her head that he merely desired to repay her hospitality with a little gallantry, and she blighted his warm overtures as with a frost. It was due to her fatal instinct to guard against a pain which might be more than she could bear.
However the young man was determined; moreover he had a reputation to keep up. More experienced than Pen he had learned how a little naturalness clears the air, and he was resolved to speak his mind no matter how hard she made it for him. In the end he blurted it out awkwardly:
"Why shouldn't I tell you? ... a fellow like me ... knocking about ... making a joke of everything ... you get the notion girls are charming useless creatures you've got to put up with because they're so charming ... And lots of them are useless without even being charming ... Makes a man cynical ... And then to meet one more charming than any and useful! ... Oh, I express myself rottenly! ... Well, it gives you a jolt. You've got to rearrange all your ideas..."