Constance, laughing.—"Don't be sure. If you rouse my curiosity, I shall be a powerful aid to expression. With a woman's wit to help you out with your meaning, how can you help making it clear?"
Bartlett.—"Because—because it wants something more than wit in you to make it clear."
Constance.—"Well, you shall have sympathy, if sympathy is what you need. Is it something like sympathy?"
Bartlett.—"Something like sympathy; but—not—not exactly sympathy."
Constance, with another laugh.—"How difficult you make it! I see! You want compassion."
Bartlett, quickly.—"Oh, no! I would sooner have contempt!"
Constance.—"But that's the one thing you can't have. Try to think of something else you want, and let me know to-morrow." She nods brightly to him, and he follows her going with a gaze of hopeless longing. As she vanishes through the doorway, he lifts his hand to his lips, and reverently kisses it to her.
Bartlett, alone.—"Try to think what I want and let you know! Ah, my darling, my darling! Your faith in me kills my hope. If you only dared a little less with me, how much more I might dare with you; and if you were not so sisterly sweet, how much sweeter you might be! Brother? Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum! You drive me farther than your worst enemy from you with that fatal word. Brother? I hate brother! If it had been cousin—And kind? Oh, I would we were
'A little less than kin, and more than kind!'"