“With the rest of us, you know, it doesn’t make any difference. You could perceive that by the way we’ve taken you in. Why, it’s really a part of you. You’re only two 186 years out of college, hardly that; and you’re still studying law; but think how people have taken you up! It is simply that Eleanor looks at it in a different way. It’s a pretty peculiarity in one of the sweetest girls I know.”
Kate paused. Bert made no move to answer. She went on:
“Now about the thing you can’t grasp in Eleanor. It’s this way. You can’t see her nature as another girl can. She’s just as sweet and tender and delicate as she can be, and she has high ideals—that’s one result of her living away from the world. If she were a little warmer in temperament, it might be different, but—” Kate paused here as though pondering whether to reveal or to conceal the thought of her mind.
“But of course it is the coldness of a diamond or a sapphire or something else very pure and precious.”
Bertram Chester pulled himself up at this point and plucked at a place away back in the conversation.
“What are these things that I don’t know? Where is it that I fall down?”
“They are some of the finer points.”
“Well tell me.” Kate noticed that the 187 color had risen in his cheeks and that his eyes drooped from hers.
“They must be corrected as we go on—provided you’ll let me correct them.”
“That’s what I am asking for—but I’d blame well like an example.”