Claire: The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, by a Blind Author

by Leslie Burton Blades

"Not at all, but my own particular interests seem infinitely more important to me than there is any possibility of yours doing."

"You mean to say that you are an egotist."

"Frankly, I am," he agreed. "One is an egotist, I suppose, when he finds himself and his needs and whims essentially worth while. I'll admit I find mine so. Perhaps you feel the same about yours. One scarcely knows where egotism and vanity meet or end in a woman." He smiled, for he meant that to provoke, and it did.

Claire's voice was edged when she replied. "A very penetrating remark. With men generally, vanity seems to be a widely extended cloak to spread over all things in a woman that they cannot dispose of in any other way. If I find you dull, or if I am not struck with your ability, or if you do not seem to me sufficiently fascinating, I am possessed of feminine vanity."

"Precisely. And why not? If I choose to regard myself as all those things which you deny, why shouldn't I find the fault in you rather than in myself?"

"Because it may be in you," suggested Claire.

"It may, but that doesn't alter the case. I quite agree that you are right, but none the less you are at fault, because I, Lawrence, am the most important of all things to me."

She did not answer. The conversation seemed to her useless. She saw no reason for arguing the matter, and she half suspected that he was simply teasing her. Besides, she could not but feel that to sit here in his coat and discuss egotism was a trifle ridiculous. He was merely trying to establish a friendship in talk which she did not care to encourage. That was her conclusion.

As he rose to gather more sticks, he asked: "Do you happen to see a rock that flattens to an edge?"

Told where he might find one, he brought it and struck it hard against their boulder. It did not break. "It may do," he said thoughtfully, and began to grind it against the side of the other rock. He worked steadily and long, and the result was a fairly good edge, which was nicked and toothed, but still an edge. He laid it down with a sigh of contentment.