“In this position I can watch your face,” he said. “Usually when we are sitting or standing together I only half see your eyes. They hide themselves under those shady lashes like violets under their leaves. Now I can look straight up into them and read all their secrets.”
“I shouldn't like you to do that—I mean to look steadily at my eyes.”
“Why not, Fan; is it not a pleasant thing to have a friend look into one's eyes?”
“Yes, just for a moment, but not—” and then she came to a stop.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said after a while, finding she did not continue. “I wonder if I can guess what was in your mind just then? Was it that our eyes reveal all they are capable of revealing at a glance, in an instant; that at a glance we see all that we wish to see; but that they do not and cannot reveal our inner self, the hidden things of the soul; and that when our eyes are gazed steadily at it looks like an attempt to pierce to that secret part of us?”
“Yes, I think that is so.”
“And yet I think that friends that love and trust each other ought not to have that uncomfortable feeling. Why should you have it, for instance, in a case where your friend freely opens his heart to you, and tells you every thought and feeling he has about you? For instance, if I were to open my heart to you now and tell you all that is in it—every thought and every wish?”
She glanced at him and her lips moved, but she did not speak, and after a little he continued:
“Listen, Fan, and you shall hear it all. In the first place there is the desire to see you contented and happy. The desire brings the thought that happiness results from the possession of certain things, which, in your case, fate has put out of your reach. Your future is uncertain, and in the event of a serious illness or an accident, you might at any time be deprived of your only means of subsistence; so that to free you from that anxiety about the future which makes perfect happiness impossible, a fixed income sufficient for anything and settled on you for life would be required. And now, Fan, may I tell you how I should like to act to put these thoughts and feelings about you into practice?”
“How?” said Fan, glancing for a moment with some curiosity at his face.