The blue eyes became less adventurous as she said, "I don't understand you, John."
"I think you do. Long as I have known you, I cannot have known you fully. Blake used to say that everybody is several people, and just now—here has come into my life some one I don't know—and don't want to know."
"Indeed! It must be rather confusing to be several people. Your friend, Mr. Blake, as your letters showed, was rather given to enigmatical statements. I should like to know him. Would you please, John, to bring me my fan—I left it in that delightful book you interrupted."
"Certainly," he said, now a trifle more at ease. For Leila to ask of any one such a service was so unlike her that he felt it to be a betrayal of embarrassment, and was humorously pleased as he went and came again.
She took the fan and played with that expressive piece of a woman's outfit while John brought the talk back to its starting-point.
"Cannot you be the Leila I used to know—a frank girl; or are you to use one of your many disguises and just leave things as they have been of late?"
"If you will say plainly just what you mean, John"—the fan was in active use—"I will be as frank as possible."
"But you may not like it, Leila."
"Oh, go on. I know you are going to be unpleasant."
He looked at her with surprise. "We are fencing—and I hate it. Once at
West Point I was fencing with a man, my friend; the button broke off my
foil and I hurt him seriously. He fell dead beside me in the trenches at
Vicksburg—dead!"