and again, she was a sherbet—sweet, fragrant, cold, and about to melt—but not for me. I knew that.
I heard presently that she spoke well of me. She spoke of my having a kind face—even the kindest face in the world.
"The kindest, plainest face in the world," was her fashion of putting it. And of course that made it hopeless, since, surely, no woman has ever loved the kindest face she knew.
Only a fool would have hoped after this—and at least I never gave her ground to call me that. Not even did I commit the folly of revealing my need. She alone ever knew it, and she only in the way that the child had known the schoolboy to gloom and rage afar in his passion for her. She had no word of mine for it then, nor had she now, and I believe she felt rather certain there never would be any. She seemed to be grateful for this and doubly kind, with only now and then the flash of a knowing look, or the trifle of a deep, swiftly questioning glance, born, I dare say, of that curiosity which the devil contrives to kindle in God's most angelic women.
Doubtless she had a little speech of refusal patted into kindliness for me. Perhaps she would not have been wholly anguished to have me hear this—to be able to assure me tenderly, graciously, of the depth and pureness of her friendship for me. Who knows? I am older now, and things once hidden are revealed. Sometimes I think that a certain new respect for me grew within her as the days tried the metal of my
