Heath shrugged his shoulders.
"In the Mediterranean, I believe."
"Doesn't that tempt you?"
"Yes, terribly. But I flatly refused to go. But she knew I was tempted. It's only curiosity on her part," he added, with a sort of hot, angry boyishness. "She can't make me out, and I didn't call. That's why she asked me."
Mrs. Mansfield mentally added a "partly" to the last sentence.
"You're very much afraid of exposing yourself—or is it your talent?—to the influence of what we may as well call the world," she said.
"I suppose one's talent is oneself, one's best self."
"Perhaps so. I have none. You know best about that. I expect you are right in being afraid."
"You don't think I'm merely a rather absurd coward and egoist?"