“It’s extraordinarily good of you to have me.”
“Oh, well,” her mother said, “Prissie is Hatty’s greatest friend.”
“I supposed that was why you do it.”
He didn’t want it to be that. He wanted it to be himself. Himself. He was proud. He didn’t like to owe anything to other people, not even to Prissie.
Her father smiled at him. “You must give us time.”
He would never give it or take it. You could see him tearing at things in his impatience, to know them, to make them give themselves up to him at once. He came rushing to give himself up, all in a minute, to make himself known.
“It isn’t fair,” he said. “I know you so much better than you know me. Priscilla’s always talking about you. But you don’t know anything about me.”
“No. We’ve got all the excitement.”
“And the risk, sir.”
“And, of course, the risk.” He liked him.