"One sees character more clearly sometimes by the flashlight of a first meeting, than when the perception is blurred by more frequent opportunities."
Again the smile, inscrutable and mocking; the eyes looked into his with a gay defiance.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to give me the benefit of these first impressions of my character. They are as comprehensive, no doubt, as those of the British traveller in America. Tell on, as the children say."
"Pardon me, I have said too much already, under the circumstances. Praise would be impertinence, and criticism insolence."
"You shall have absolution in advance. Begin then!" she added, with a little nod of command. "What is the most striking trait of my character on first acquaintance?"
"Well, if you will have it, I should say it was a restlessness which you probably call energy; but it is a different thing. Energy is absorbed in the object which it seeks to attain. Restlessness is absorbed in the attaining."
"Hm! what next?"
"Next? Next, comes a quality almost invariably [Pg 108] allied to such restlessness as yours,—ambition. You may have all sorts of fine theories about equality and that kind of thing; but you want power—power over the lives with which you come in contact—power for good of course; but it must be yours and wielded by you. It is not enough that things should get along somehow. They must go right in your way."
Winifred laughed.
"Ah! you say that because I wanted to show you how to set off a rocket last night."