“No. It’s squalid enough!”
“Then it is because you are the first real person I have ever met outside the cover of a book.”
“I give you something, then?”
“A great deal.”
A modesty seized him, touched with self-reproach.
“Only because it pleases me,” he said, brusquely. “The giving is done by you. That much I realize.”
“I’m glad—and I’m glad to give.”
“Yes, a woman’s life is to give—that’s natural law—the only kind of law worth accepting.” He hesitated—then, “Are you satisfied to give?”
She smiled her wise, intricate smile, and he did not wait for the answer.
“You never smile as you should,” he reproached. “Yours is a thinking smile—perplexing. Do you never smile or laugh from sheer happiness?”