"Yes," she agreed. "But do you think that's the only way to look at people, any more than it is at books? You like or dislike a novel, perhaps; but you don't like or dislike--oh, what shall I say? Gibbon's Roman Empire. There you admire or don't admire; or rather you study or neglect; because, if you study, you must admire. Don't think me learned; it's only an illustration." "Gibbon's a duty," said Morewood, "but I'm not clear that Alexander Quisante is." "Oh, no; exactly the opposite; for me at least." "Is he then a curriculum?" "He's partly a curriculum, and partly--I don't know--a taste for strong drink perhaps." She laughed reluctantly, adding, "I'm being absurd, I know." "In talk or in conduct?" "Both, Mr. Morewood. I can only see him in metaphors. I once thought of him as a mountain range; that's fine-sounding and dignified, isn't it? But now I'm humbler in my fancies; I think of him as a forest--as the bush, you know, full of wretched underwood that you keep tumbling over, but with splendid trees (I don't know whether there are in the bush, really) and every now and then a beautiful open space or a stately vista." "From all this riot of your fancy," said Morewood grimly, "one only thing emerges quite plainly." "Does even one thing?" "Yes. That you think about Quisante a mighty lot." "Oh, yes. Of course I do, a mighty lot," she admitted, laughing. "But you aren't very much more useful than Mrs. Baxter, who told me that my innocent heedlessness might give Mr. Quisante pain. I oughtn't to have told you that, but it was rather funny. I'm sure she's said it to all the Baxter girls in turn, and about all the girls that all the Baxter boys were ever in love with." "Possibly Mrs. Baxter only perceives the wretched underwood." "Inevitably," said May. "For heaven's sake don't drift into thinking that you're the only person who can understand him. Once think that about anybody and you're his slave." "Perhaps I'm the only person who takes the trouble. I don't claim genius, only diligence." "Well, you're very diligent," Morewood grunted. She sat looking straight in front of her for a few moments in silence, while Morewood admired the curve of her chin and the moulding of her throat. "I feel," she said in a low voice and slowly, "as if I must see what becomes of him and as if it ought to be seen at close quarters." Then Morewood spoke with deliberate plainness. "You know better than I do that he's not of your class; I mean in himself, not merely where he happens to come from. And for my part I'm not sure that he's an honest man, and I don't think he's a high-minded one." "Do you believe people are bound to be always just what they are now?" she asked. "Thinking you can improve them is the one thing more dangerous to yourself than thinking you've a special gift for understanding them. To be quite plain, both generally end in love-affairs and, what's more, unhappy love-affairs."