“You would miss me, I am sure,” she said, in the most matter-of-fact tone, “and I should miss you greatly, if you were gone.” “Where will you go to when you leave here?” he asked. “To my own people, I hope,” she answered, dreamily, her eyes wandering away to the horizon. “Tell me about them,” he begged. “I have often tried to lead you to talk of them, but you never would. You are a tell-all, tell-nothing sort of person. Others do not notice that, but I do, and have woven some theories about it.” “I dare say they do me great honor, but in all probability they are far from true.” “Well, then, why will you not tell me about yourself?” he asked, in an injured tone. “You talk as though I have been making history on this planet for ages. I am young; what could I have to tell that would satisfy your expectation of the extraordinary. You have known me here in this house for more than two years. As the Indians in the old story-books say, we have ‘eaten salt together daily,’ and we have walked and talked together with the freedom of children. What is there of me still unrevealed?” “I don’t know,” he said, “but I feel there is something--a part of you and your experiences from which I and others are shut out, and that part is the greatest part of you. I argue that, because, although you attract many, myself, poor moth, among them, no one gets near to you. An invisible but formidable wall surrounds you, from which all our attempted gallantries rebound like arrows which strike rocks. And there you are behind it, always smiling and agreeable, but entirely unmoved and secure. Now, somebody or some experience built that wall, for it is not in the nature of things for it to be there without cause.” “Go on,” she said, smiling, as he waited for her to speak. “You will end by being a great architect yet. How like magic you put up that wall.” “You may chaff as much as you please,” he said, a little savagely, “but I am not to be put off that way. Now that I have begun I am going to say some things seriously and you must hear them seriously.” “I told you to go on,” she said, composedly.