She was pretty and very penitent, and he had had a long walk and a glass of beer, and he felt perfectly at rest and happy; so he put out his arms and took her into them for a moment, and when he let her go they both felt that, say what you like about love, it is the finest thing in all the world, and that there is nothing else which makes people so utterly unselfish.
"I had a letter from Graham this morning," said Charlie, after a pause.
"Where is he now?"
"In Devonshire still, sketching at some place called Anerly. He wrote me to send him some painting materials. He is going to begin a picture there, so I suppose we shall not see anything of him for some time. He has asked me to run down to him for a few days?"
"And will you go?"
"Not I. I am too busy just now."
"But you could do your work down there, and I am sure you want a run away and a little fresh air."
"Yes; I could write, no doubt. But then you see, May, I should not be able to come and read my MS. to you, and I should not get on very well. While I am at work at Long Acre I am in a hurry to be done, in order that I may get back to you, and I am too anxious to please you to do slovenly work; so the result is that I work longer and yet have more leisure, which is a paradox, and a paradox is particularly unsuited to the understanding of women."
"You are always saying nice and disagreeable things in the one breath; and I don't know whether to like you or to hate you."
"To cases of this kind an infrangible rule applies. It is, when I say nice things, hate me; when I say disagreeable things, love me. This is another paradox. Paradoxes, although they are not intelligible to women, are all the more dear to them on that very account. You never yet knew a woman who thoroughly understood a man care for him. I never did."