"But there's a great deal of it. It's efficient. You've done your job. That's more than most high-born aides-de-camp could say."
"Honestly? Well—I don't know——"
"Who did you play with in Schoenstrom? Oh, I wish I'd noticed that town. But I couldn't tell then that—— What, uh, which girl did you fall in love with?"
"None! Honest! None! Not one! Never fell in love——"
"You're unfortunate. I have, lots of times. I remember quite enjoying being kissed once, at a dance."
When he answered, his voice was strange: "I suppose you're engaged to somebody."
"No. And I don't know that I shall be. Once, I thought I liked a man, rather. He has nice eyes and the most correct spectacles, and he is polite to his mother at breakfast, and his name is Jeff, and he will undoubtedly be worth five or six hundred thousand dollars, some day, and his opinions on George Moore and commercial paper are equally sound and unoriginal—— Oh, I ought not to speak of him, and I certainly ought not to be spiteful. I'm not at all reticent and ladylike, am I! But—— Somehow I can't see him out here, against a mountain of jagged rock."
"Only you won't always be out here against mountains. Some day you'll be back in—where is it in New York State?"
"I confess it's Brooklyn—but not what you'd mean by Brooklyn. Your remark shows you to have subtlety. I must remember that, mustn't I! I won't always be driving through this big land. But—— Will I get all fussy and ribbon-tied again, when I go back?"
"No. You won't. You drive like a man."