“And so I will,” he grumbled, “though I know perfectly well that it would be manlier if I kept silence. As you say, we have eaten and walked and talked together as freely as children for more than two years. In that time we have become well acquainted--not the poor, shallow acquaintance of formal society, but the near, intimate association of two human beings who honestly express themselves to each other. The result of this comradeship is that I love you. I will not say I have learned to love you, for something of the fact was clear to me the very first time I saw you. In all probability you don’t remember the incidents of that day at all, but I do. Brooks, our good host, as you know, is my old friend. I had drifted to this city in an aimless way, as I had been drifting for years. He met me and brought me home to dinner with him. I have always adored intellect in man or woman. One look into your eyes told me that you are of uncommon endowments. Then, along with a beautiful but simple stateliness of manner, you have certain childish graces of which you are unconscious. You have never put your childhood entirely away from you. I particularly noticed the correct school-girlish arrangement of your knife and fork at the end of the dinner, and was charmed by it. After we left the table I said to Brooks that you had wonderful eyes. He agreed with me, but warned me not to let them undo me, because he said you were constructed on a novel plan, one man being the same as another to you, and all being as nothing. “I paid no attention to his warning, as you see. On the contrary, when he went to the _Times_ office and secured me a situation, I accepted it gratefully, because I could then become a member of his household and see you every day. I have loved you ever since, and have had much quiet joy in it, and it has bettered me in many ways. I know perfectly well--I have always known--that you do not love me, and in my least selfish moments I am glad of it, because I have nothing to offer you that is fit for you to accept. I would not tell you that I love you--never a word of it--were I not sure that it will not hurt you. In the years to come the memory of it may comfort you. It is a great comfort to me now, hopeless as it is. It helps me only to tell it. O my child, my heart has long been sick and sore from bruises the like of which I pray you may never know. We men are set up to be so strong and pretend to be so self-satisfied, but we are only grown-up children after all. When we are sore in spirit we long for some loving woman soul to take us to her arms and pet and soothe us mother-like, yet we often live our lives without it.