"I know you for a frank and loyal gentleman. . . Adventure--and
books? Ah, the books! Haven't I turned stacks of them over!
Haven't I? . . ."
"Yes," murmured Mills. "That's what one does."
She put out her hand and laid it lightly on Mills' sleeve.
"Listen, I don't need to justify myself, but if I had known a
single woman in the world, if I had only had the opportunity to
observe a single one of them, I would have been perhaps on my
guard. But you know I hadn't. The only woman I had anything to do
with was myself, and they say that one can't know oneself. It
never entered my head to be on my guard against his warmth and his
terrible obviousness. You and he were the only two, infinitely
different, people, who didn't approach me as if I had been a
precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece of
Chinese porcelain. That's why I have kept you in my memory so
well. Oh! you were not obvious! As to him--I soon learned to
regret I was not some object, some beautiful, carved object of bone
or bronze; a rare piece of porcelain, pate dure, not pate tendre.
A pretty specimen."
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