"Oh, no!" answered Cecilia. "I stopped reading improving things after I left school, I can't bear them, and it depresses me so to use my head! I'm not a bit clever." She sighed with her last words. They were both making many confessions about their failings. Somehow it seemed necessary. Also, they both wished a great deal of the time that they were much nicer!
"You know what Stephen Leacock said about intellectual honesty?" asked Cecilia. K. Stuyvesant shook his head.
"I can't quote," said Cecilia, "but he said as you grew old you would find books had brought you more pleasure than anything except tobacco. But then, he said, you must be honest about them, reading only what you liked. That if 'Pippa Passes' didn't appeal, you should let 'Pippa' pass, that she was not for you. There was some more, but I shan't ruin it by misquoting it. It was so clever!"
K. Stuyvesant didn't answer. Because Cecilia was afraid of his silences, she began to tell him of a small brother whom she greatly loved.
"But you'll know him," she ended, "if you come to see us. You will, won't you?"
"Well, rather!" answered K. Stuyvesant. "Why, you know I'm coming!" There was almost a resentment in his voice. "Cecilia," he said, with his first use of her first name, "I haven't any right, but you're so dear, I have to. Have I any chance?" He leaned very close above her steamer chair. He had gotten quite white. "Cecilia?" he whispered in question. He reached for her hand, then drew back sharply.
"I know you meet lots of fellows much finer than I am," he went on, "and when I'm away from you I don't see how I have the nerve to hope, but I can't help it. Cecilia—dear?" The "dear" was rather muffled. K. Stuyvesant had never used it before and it stuck, even though he wanted so much to say it!
She turned her face toward him, and he could say no more.
She thought of a brick on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "Nothing could matter to him," she thought; "he is so dear, but I must see..."
"When we get home," she whispered, "after two months you may ask me again, if you're sure."