"Do you believe in heredity?" he asked.
"Yes, and no. Not in this case, if that's what you mean. Miss Tremont is far too clever. Do you know," she went on, with slow distinctness, "that you are changed."
He made a movement of impatience. "I have heard nothing but that all evening," he declared. "Simply because the town had put it's brand on me, whether I wished it or no, am I to be forever upbraided?" There was both petulence and pathos in his voice.
"H'm," she said, "you still have all your old audacity. But I don't think it is anything but genuine interest in you that prompts such remarks."
"You once said something about being genuine. You said it was pathetic. Now I know why that is so true. The pathos comes after one has lost the genuineness."
"Yes, but when one does nothing but think and think, and brood and brood, the pathos turns bathos. The thing to do is to laugh!"
"Is that why there is so much flippancy?"
"No doubt. Tragedy evokes flippancy and comedy starts tears."
"You are a very fountain of worldly paradoxes. Where do you get them all from?"
"From my enemies. I love my enemies, you know, for what I can deprive them of. That's right, leave me just when I'm getting brilliant! Go and talk to Miss Ware about the rich red tints of the Indian summer leaves and the poetry in the gurgle of the brook. Go on, it will be like a breath of fresh air after the dismal gloom of my conversation!" She got up, laughing, and added, in a voice that he had not heard before, "Go in and win! Your eyes have told your secret."