"It would not be good for your
conceit, if you have any, to tell you."
"I have no conceit and I am not inquisitive," he said, "but I do
not see why you laughed."
Their period of waiting came to an end at this point. The fish
was brought and their conversation became disjointed. In the
silence which followed, the old shadow crept over her face. Once
only it lifted. It was while they were waiting for the cutlets.
She leaned towards him, her elbows upon the tablecloth, her face
supported by her fingers.
"I think that it is time we left these generalities," she
insisted, "and you told me something rather more personal,
something which I am very anxious to know. Tell me exactly why
so self-centered a person as yourself should interest himself in
a fellow-creature at all. It seems odd to me."
"It is odd," he admitted, frankly. "I will try to explain it to
you but it will sound very bald, and I do not think that you will
understand. I watched you a few nights ago out on the roof at
Blenheim House. You were looking across the house-tops and you
didn't seem to be seeing anything at all really, and yet all the
time I knew that you were seeing things I couldn't, you were
understanding and appreciating something which I knew nothing of,
and it worried me. I tried to talk to you that evening, but you
were rude."
"You really are a curious person," she remarked. "Are you always
worried, then, if you find that some one else is seeing things or
understanding things which are outside your comprehension?"
"Always," he replied promptly.
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