"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after we arrived?"
We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of a stream.
"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my nerves."
"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the hotel."
"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would amuse you."
"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have to get on with my painting."
That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away.
"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here."
"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to everybody else as they are to you."
"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--"