"I can't bear to have you know it—b-but I am!"
"How can you say that?—when you've been so perfectly sweet to me?" she exclaimed.
And after a moment's silence she laughed deliciously.
"Only to look at you is enough," she said, "for a girl to feel absolute confidence in you."
"Do you feel that?"
"I?... Yes.... Yes, I do. I would trust you without hesitation. I have trusted you, have I not? And after all, it is not so strange. You are the sort of man to whom I am accustomed. We are both of the same sort."
"No," he said gloomily, "I'm really a pariah."
"You! Why do you say such things, after you have been so—perfectly charming to a frightened girl?"[243]
"I'm a pariah," he repeated. "I'm a social outcast! I—I know it, now." And he leaned his head wearily on both palms.
The girl looked at him in consternation.