about me."

"No; I do not care to know. All that is not part of yourself. It is
outside you."

"And because you thought you knew me from those letters, you suffer me
to come here and be your disciple still? Yet you gave me back my
letters?"

"That was because they were written to me under a wrong impression."

"Will you have them back again?"

She shook her head.

"I know them all by heart," she said simply.

There was not the slightest sign of coquetry or flattery in her voice,
or in her eyes, which met his look with clear and steady gaze.

"I cannot ask you to read my portrait to me as you drew it from those
pictures."

"Why not?" She began to read him his portrait as readily as if she
were stating the conclusion of a problem. "I saw that you were young
and full of generous thoughts; sometimes you were indignant with
things as they are, but generally you laughed at them and accepted
them. It is, it seems, the nature of your friends to laugh a great
deal at things which they ought to remedy if they could; not laugh at
them. I thought that you wanted some strong stimulus to work; anybody
could see that you were a man of kindly nature and good-breeding. You
were careful not to offend by anything that you wrote, and I was
certain that you were a man of honor. I trusted you, Arnold, before I
saw your face, because I knew your soul."

"Trust me still, Iris," he said in rather a husky voice.

"Of course I did not know, and never thought, what sort of a man you
were to look at. Yet I ought to have known that you were handsome. I
should have guessed that from the very tone of your letters. A
hunchback or a cripple could not have written in so light-hearted a
strain, and I should have discovered, if I had thought of such a
thing, that you were very well satisfied with your personal
appearance. Young men should always be that, at least, if only to give
them confidence."

"Oh, Iris--oh! Do you really think me conceited?"

"I did not say that. I only said that you were satisfied with
yourself. That, I understand now, was clear, from many little natural
touches in your letters."

"What else did you learn?"

"Oh, a great deal--much more than I can tell you. I knew that you go
into society, and I learned from you what society means; and though
you tried to be sarcastic, I understood easily that you liked social
pleasure."

"Was I sarcastic?"

"Was it not sarcastic to tell me how the fine ladies, who affect so