"I suppose nothing we do is ever wholly lost," she admitted. "I did understand Mr. Hamlen, but that understanding has brought me no nearer to the point where I can help him."
"You helped him to-day more than any one has ever done except myself.—You see how frankly I accept first glory."
"I helped him?" Merry protested. "Why, I only listened and allowed myself to be entertained."
"Yes; but there is a difference in the way one does even that. He hesitated to show you his work and yet he wanted to show it to you. That was the struggle between the habit of years to restrain his real feeling and the desire which your sympathetic personality created in him. And the desire won out. Each time the habit is broken its power over him becomes weaker. Now do you see the value of the service you rendered him?"
"It is wonderful how clearly you analyze things!" the girl exclaimed admiringly. "All I could see was depressing, but you found encouragement in everything."
"Surely those beautiful books encouraged you?"
"Yes; but they emphasized the awful pity of the deliberate repression of his full ability."
"Still; the fact that the demand for expression was as stronger than the will to repress it shows the character beneath."
"Then not to express one's individuality shows a lack of character?" Merry inquired soberly.
"I think I sense some personal application," Huntington answered guardedly. "I must know more before I utter further words of wisdom."