She stopped precipitately, somehow divining that she was mysteriously wounding him.  And then suddenly she understood that that was the way he thought of himself, exactly; that he, who unconsciously moved mountains by his gentleness, somehow saw himself only in the light of his “terrible” (but still unpublished) articles.  It was as if he reckoned himself as either an article-writer, or nothing....

“Though it’s true,” said Cally, gently, with hardly any pause at all, “that through most of the time I’ve known you I’ve thought of you ... as a hard man ... terribly uncompromising.”

His, it was clear, was not a tongue that spoke easily about himself.  He finished putting a flower-box into the window of the new Works, before he said: 

“I hope we needn’t trouble now about anything at all that’s past.”

“That’s what I hope, too ... more than you could.  And besides—­I’ve always liked you best when you were gentle.  And ... it’s because of what you’ve taught me—­at those times—­that I’m doing this to-day.”

Again he turned his singularly lucid gaze full upon her; and now his look was absolutely startled.  Color was coming into his face.  His short, crisp hair, which had been parted so neatly an hour ago, stood rumpled all over his head, not mitigating the general queerness of his appearance.  And yet his mouth wore a smile, humorous and disparaging.

“May I ask what you consider that I’ve taught you?”

“Everything I know,” said Cally, lacing a pencil between her fingers.

“Why!...  When we’ve never even had a real talk about it before!...  I told you once that you were more generous than—­”

“No, I’m never generous enough.  That’s my trouble, among others....  But if you think that it’s a nice and happy thing for us to be putting up this building, I want you please always to remember ... that you’ve done it all yourself.”

There was a tense silence, out of which his voice spoke, no longer with any trace of humor.

“Don’t be polite....  I couldn’t quite stand it.  Do you mean that?”

“It’s all a failure if you won’t believe that I do.”

“Then I do believe it.”

This time the silence ran somewhat longer, and again it was V.V.’s voice, greatly stirred, that broke it.

“I don’t understand, but I do believe it....  And it makes me pretty proud.  By George, pretty proud!...  Why—­I’ve talked a lot—­but it’s the first thing I’ve ever accomplished! The first thing....”

His voice showed that his mind had swept away from her, over spaces; and Cally raised her eyes and looked at him.  He sat gazing wide-eyed into the dull-green glow of her lamp, on his face a curious and moving look; a look humbled yet exalted, gloriously wondering, and to her the wistfullest thing she had ever seen in her life.  He, who had given away his patrimony, who was giving away his life every day with a will, thought that this was the first thing....