"
May smiled at the phrase he had happened on and its familiar
associations--surely so out of place here. But she followed his meaning
and appreciated his seriousness. She could answer him neither by an only
half-sincere assurance that she was ready to be entire friends, nor yet
by a joking evasion of his point.
"Yes, I see: I expect that is so," she said in a troubled voice; it was
so very hard to take him for worse, and it was rather hard to resolve to
make no effort at taking him for better. She forced a laugh, as she said,
"I'll think about it, Mr. Quisante."
As she spoke, she raised her eyes to his; a low, hardly audible
exclamation escaped her lips before she was conscious of it. If ever a
man spoke plainly without words what was in his soul, Quisante spoke it
then. She could not miss the meaning of his eyes; all unprepared as she
was, it came home to her in a minute with a shock of wonder that forbade
either pain or pleasure and seemed to leave her numb. Now she saw how
truly she, no less than the others, had treated him as an outsider, as a
tool, as something to be used, not as one of their own world.
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