“I think I must ask her to the house.”
“Why should you?”
“Well, perhaps you might tell me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aren’t people saying that the reason I don’t ask her is because I am piqued at the supposed resemblance between us?”
“Oh, people will say anything. If we are to model our lives according to their ridiculous ideas—”
“Well, but we do.”
“Unless we follow the dictates of our own natures, our own souls.”
He lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
“Be yourself, be the woman who sings, and no one—not even a fool—will ever say again that you resemble a nonentity like Miss Schley. You see—you see now that even socially it is a mistake not to be your real self. You can be imitated by a cute little Yankee who has neither imagination nor brains, only the sort of slyness that is born out of the gutter.”