"Lord no! What does it matter?"
"You may care then to know," she went on, still probing at him, "that your not caring is the principal reason for my—finding you interesting—for my liking you—as I do."
"Well, I'm interested to know that," he said reasonably, "but blessed if I can see why. What difference does it make to you?"
"It's a great surprise to me," she said clearly. "I never met anybody before who didn't care more about being sophisticated than about anything else. To have you not even think of that—to have you think of nothing but your work and how to 'mean well' as you say——" she stopped, flushing deeply.
"Yes, it must be quite a change," he admitted sobered by her tone, but evidently vague as to her meaning. "Well, I'm very glad you don't mind my being as green as grass and as dense as a hitching-block. It's very lucky for me."
A quick bitterness sprang into her voice. "I don't see," she echoed his phrase, "what difference it makes to you!"
"Don't you?" he said, lighting a cigarette and not troubling himself to discuss the question with her. She was evidently all on edge with nerves, he thought, and needed to be calmed down. He pitied women for their nerves, and was always kindly tolerant of the resultant petulances.
She frowned and said with a tremulous resentment, as if gathering herself together for a long-premediated attempt at self-defense. "You're not only as green as grass, but you perceive nothing,—any European, even the stupidest, would perceive what you—but you are as primitive as a Sioux Indian, you have the silly morals of a non-conformist preacher,—you're as brutal as——"
He opposed to this outburst the impregnable wall of a calm and meditative silence. She looked angrily into his quiet eyes, which met hers with unflinching kindness. The contrast between their faces was striking—was painful.
She said furiously, "There is nothing to you except that you are stronger than I, and you know it—and that is brutal!" She paused a long moment, quivering, and then relapsed into spent, defeated lassitude,—"and I like it," she added under her breath, looking down at her hands miserably.