She hesitated—­ventured:  “What do you think is my worst fault?”

He shook his head laughingly.  “We are going to have a happy supper.”

“Do you think I am very vain?” persisted she.

“Who’s been telling you so?”

“Mr. Tetlow.  He gave me an awful talking to, just before I—­” She paused at the edge of the forbidden ground.  “He didn’t spare me,” she went on.  “He said I was a vain, self-centered little fool.”

“And what did you say?”

“I was very angry.  I told him he had no right to accuse me of that.  I reminded him that he had never heard me say a word about myself.”

“And did he say that the vainest people were just that way—­never speaking of themselves, never thinking of anything else?”

“Oh, he told you what he said,” cried she.

“No,” laughed he.

She reddened. “You think I’m vain?”

He made a good-humoredly satirical little bow.  “I think you are charming,” said he.  “It would be a waste of time to look at or to think of anyone else when oneself is the most charming and interesting person in the world.  Still—­” He put into his face and voice a suggestion of gravity that caught her utmost attention—­“if one is to get anywhere, is to win consideration from others—­and happiness for oneself—­one simply must do a little thinking about others—­occasionally.”

Her eyes lowered.  A faint color tinged her cheeks.

“The reason most of us are so uncomfortable—­downright unhappy most of the time—­is that we never really take our thoughts off our precious fascinating selves.  The result is that some day we find that the liking—­and friendship—­and love—­of those around us has limits—­and we are left severely alone.  Of course, if one has a great deal of money, one can buy excellent imitations of liking and friendship and even love—­I ought to say, especially love——­”

The color flamed in her face.

“But,” he went on, “if one is in modest circumstances or poor, one has to take care.”

“Or dependent,” she said, with one of those unexpected flashes of subtle intelligence that so complicated the study of her character.  He had been talking to amuse himself rather than with any idea of her understanding.  Her sudden bright color and her two words—­“or dependent”—­roused him to see that she thought he was deliberately giving her a savage lecture from the cover of general remarks.  “With the vanity of the typical woman,” he said to himself, “she always imagines she is the subject of everyone’s thought and talk.”

“Or dependent,” said he to her, easily.  “I wasn’t thinking of you, but yours is a case in point.  Come, now—­nothing to look blue about!  Here’s something to eat.  No, it’s for the next table.”

“You won’t let me explain,” she protested, between the prudence of reproach and the candor of anger.

“There’s nothing to explain,” replied he.  “Don’t bother about the mistakes of yesterday.  Remember them—­yes.  If one has a good memory, to forget is impossible—­not to say unwise.  But there ought to be no more heat or sting in the memory of past mistakes than in the memory of last year’s mosquito bites.”