She shook her head.
"You're not crying?" he asked suspiciously. Then he looked at her. She was sitting very still, biting her lips to keep her tears back.
"You really mustn't, Stella!" he urged in a queer, soft voice she had never heard him use before. "I'm not a sea-gull and I'm not dying, and I'm not even a stone."
"No," she whispered, "but you're just like the sea-gull: you won't share your pain."
"Look here," said Julian, "I—you—Would you mind sitting on that log over there,—it's quite dry,—just opposite? Thanks. Now I can talk more easily. I want you to remember that I'm a million times better off than most people. What troubles me isn't what the vicar calls my affliction. I'm rather proud of what I'm able to do with a pair of crutches in six months. It's being out of it; that's what set me off on those Canadian chaps. I miss the idea that I might be in that kind of thing, rather. You see, I feel quite well. I'll settle down to it in time, and I won't shut you out, if you'll remember not to let me—you're most awfully innocent, aren't you? D'you mind telling me how old you are?"
"Twenty-eight," said Stella. "But I'm not really innocent. I think I know all the horrible things."
Julian laughed ruefully. "You wouldn't see them coming though," he said; "and, besides, the things that aren't innocent are by no means always horrible. However, that's not what I was going to say. If we're to be friends at all, and it's not particularly easy even for me to live in the same house with you and not be friends, you'll have to help me pretty considerably."
"How shall I help you?" Stella asked eagerly. "I have wanted to, you know. I mean that I did sometimes think you wanted to be friends—as Mr. Travers did when he tried to become human because his cat died. I haven't told you about that; it made him see how important it was. And when you didn't want to be friendly, I tried not to bother you; I just went on with the work. That was the best way, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Julian, carefully. "You did the work uncommonly well, my dear, and you never bothered me in that way. I'm afraid I don't quite follow Mr. Travers. I suppose he is the town clerk, isn't he? He may have meant the same thing that I do; but I should have thought it would have been—well—simpler for him. I don't know how to explain to you what I mean. You remember Marian?" Stella nodded, "I came a cropper over Marian," Julian explained. "She behaved extraordinarily well. No one could possibly blame her; but she wasn't exactly the kind of woman I'd banked on, and I had banked on her pretty heavily. When I saw my mistake, I understood that I wasn't fit for marriage, and I became reconciled to it. I mean I accepted the idea thoroughly. It would be tying a woman to a log. But I don't want to start feeling just yet—any kind of feeling. Even nice, mild, pitying friendship like yours stings. D'you understand?"
"I'm not mild and I'm not pitying," said Stella, quietly. "And you don't only shut me out; you shut out everybody. Why, you won't even let yourself go over your old polar bears in the book!"