“I remember,” said Sharlee, “when I was a very little girl, not more than twelve years old, I think, I first heard about you—­about Charles Gardiner West.  You were hardly grown then, but already people were talking about you.  I don’t remember now, of course, just what they said, but it must have been something very splendid, for I remember the sort of picture I got.  I have always liked for men to be very clean and high-minded—­I think because my father was that sort of man.  I have put that above intellect, and abilities, and what would be called attractions; and so what they said about you made a great impression on me.  You know how very young girls are—­how they like to have the figure of a prince to spin their little romances around ... and so I took you for mine.  You were my knight without fear and without reproach ...  Sir Galahad.  When I was sixteen, I used to pass you in the street and wonder if you didn’t hear my heart thumping.  You never looked at me; you hadn’t any idea who I was.  And that is a big and fine thing, I think—­to be the hero of somebody you don’t even know by name ... though of course not so big and fine as to be the hero of somebody who knows you very well.  And you were that to me, too.  When I grew up and came to know you, I still kept you on that pedestal you never saw.  I measured you by the picture I had carried for so many years, and I was not disappointed.  All that my little girl’s fancy had painted you, you seemed to be.  I look back now over the last few years of my life, and so much that I have liked most—­that has been dearest—­has centred about you.  Yes, more than once I have been quite sure that I was in love with you.  You wonder that I can show you my heart this way?  I couldn’t of course, except—­well—­that it is all past now.  And that is what seems sad to me....  There never was any prince; my knight is dead; and Sir Galahad I got out of a book....  Don’t you think that that is pretty sad?”

West, who had been looking at her with a kind of frightened fascination, hastily averted his eyes, for he saw that her own had suddenly filled with tears.  She turned away from him again; a somewhat painful silence ensued; and presently she broke it, speaking in a peculiarly gentle voice, and not looking at him.

“I’m glad that you told me—­at last.  I’ll be glad to remember that ... and I’m always your friend.  But don’t you think that perhaps we’d better finish our talk some other time?”

“No,” said West.  “No.”

He pulled himself together, struggling desperately to throw off the curious benumbing inertia that was settling down upon him.  “You are doing me an injustice.  A most tremendous injustice.  You have misunderstood everything from the beginning.  I must explain—­”

“Don’t you think that argument will only make it all so much worse?”

“Nothing could possibly be worse for me than to have you think of me and speak to me in this way.”