“Perhaps he couldn’t cut down a tree,” said Hewet. “Have you never cared for anybody?” he asked.
“I’ve cared for heaps of people, but not to marry them,” she said. “I suppose I’m too fastidious. All my life I’ve wanted somebody I could look up to, somebody great and big and splendid. Most men are so small.”
“What d’you mean by splendid?” Hewet asked. “People are—nothing more.”
Evelyn was puzzled.
“We don’t care for people because of their qualities,” he tried to explain. “It’s just them that we care for,”—he struck a match—“just that,” he said, pointing to the flames.
“I see what you mean,” she said, “but I don’t agree. I do know why I care for people, and I think I’m hardly ever wrong. I see at once what they’ve got in them. Now I think you must be rather splendid; but not Mr. Hirst.”
Hewlet shook his head.
“He’s not nearly so unselfish, or so sympathetic, or so big, or so understanding,” Evelyn continued.
Hewet sat silent, smoking his cigarette.
“I should hate cutting down trees,” he remarked.