But instantly she told herself that she was utterly unjustified in such a conjecture. His words had been absolutely guileless, nor had she the smallest cause for interpreting them otherwise. What she had done was to read into them the knowledge that twelve years ago she had treated him shabbily, and now credited him with an impulse of revenge. Yet she feared him a little. Beneath his quiet, kind words there was something white-hot and keen-edged. As he had said, he wanted things and got them. What, then, did he want of her? He had told her--her friendship. It was like him, too, like his consummate cleverness, which it required cleverness to perceive at all, so subtle and natural was it, to say these strong and serious things about her happiness and her friendship--things which he must know would remain in her mind--and then round off the sentence with a pure triviality about the economy of energy. It gave her, however--as, no doubt, he meant it to do, since he had said his say--an opportunity for altering the direction of the conversation without abrupt transition. "I really don't know if one ought to rejoice in economy of energy," she said, as they turned to walk back. "There is such an enormous lot of energy in the world, and I think there would be less trouble if it was scarcer. I know I have quite as much as I have any use for. I should find more of it embarrassing." "You are admirable," he said. "I believe there is never a scheme to help and relieve distress brought before you to which you do not give real support--not the mere buttress of your name, but your time, your pains, your energy. But, you see, you economise energy in other directions." "What directions?" she asked. "Emotional. You never worry, do you? You never regret, you never allow passion of any sort to master and exhaust you." This, again, was rather more intimate than she liked, yet, somehow, she did not resent it. Perhaps it would be truer to say that she could not resent it, for in his very gentleness there was inherent a strength that made resentment futile. You might as well resent the slow, grinding movement of a glacier. In any case, it would do no good to resent it, and Catherine always set her face against purposeless attitudes. "No; I don't think I worry much," she said. "But, then, I am very happy. I have little to worry about." Then suddenly she told herself that she was being afraid of this man, and to her next words she summoned her courage, asserting herself against him, announcing her independence. "And certainly I do not often regret," she said. "People talk of destiny as if it was a force outside themselves. If I thought that, no doubt I should often regret the dealings of destiny with me. But I don't, for in almost all important decisions--the things that really make one's life--destiny is nothing more nor less than one's own will. And my will isn't weak, I think."