"I'm not ashamed of anything
I do. It happened to interest him to know that I kissed you, and I
happened to be in a good humor, so I satisfied his curiosity by a simple
and precise 'yes.' Being rather a sensible man, after his fashion, he
dropped the subject."
"Except to say that he hated me."
"Oh, it worries you? Well, if you must probe this stupendous matter to
its depths he didn't say he hated you. I simply know he does."
"It doesn't wor----"
"Oh, let's drop it!" she cried spiritedly. "It's a most uninteresting
matter to me."
With a tremendous effort Anthony made his acquiescence a twist of
subject, and they drifted into an ancient question-and-answer game
concerned with each other's pasts, gradually warming as they discovered
the age-old, immemorial resemblances in tastes and ideas. They said
things that were more revealing than they intended--but each pretended
to accept the other at face, or rather word, value.
The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best
picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood
and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second
portrait, and a third--before long the best lines cancel out--and the
secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled
and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a
picture.
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