"Yes, of women whose minds are not sound."
"But who shall say when a mind is not sound? How do you know that it is? What proof have I? We often read that no one suspected that Miss So-and-So had the slightest intention of destroying herself. Well, I may be a Miss So-and-So."
"I have no right to doubt your word," said Lyman. "Things that we most doubt sometimes come to pass, and then we wonder why we should have questioned them. But I will stand between you and the rock; I will be your friend and confidant, your brother, let us say. You must keep faith with me, and if you ever really fall in love, the sweet, torturing, the desperate sort of love which must exist, come to me and tell me."
"I will keep faith. But why do you say the sweet and torturing and desperate love that must exist? You talk as if it was a speculation of the mind rather than a fact of the heart. Don't you know that it does exist? Was there not a woman in the past who aroused it within you?"
"I have seen one or two women who might have done so. I remember one particularly. I was young and foolish, of course, but as I looked at her I thought she could win my soul. I did not know her; I saw her only once and that was at a hotel in the White Mountains. She and a party of ladies and gentlemen dined at the hotel, and I was a waiter." She looked up at him. "Yes, a waiter, with a white apron on and a Greek Testament in my pocket. The employment was menial, perhaps loathsome in your eyes."
"No," she said with a shiver. "Perhaps you had to do it."
"Yes, under a keen whip, the desire to continue my education. I think I must have been the first of my race to run forward at the tap of a knife on a dish. In my strong determination to fit myself—as I then thought—for the duties of life, I would have done almost anything to further my plans; and I was never really ashamed of my having to wait at table to earn knowledge-money, until the night I saw you—until you turned to some one and said: 'What, that thing!'"
"I did say that," she answered, "yes, and I have censured myself a thousand times. I hoped that you had not heard me. I am awfully sorry."
"Oh, I don't take it to heart. It hurt my pride a little and it gave me a wrong impression of you."
"Let us forget it. I was always a fool—until after that night. But about the woman, what became of her?"