me."

"I would appeal to your generosity, then."

"That is another matter, Madame," said Orsino, taking his hat.

"I only said that I would--" Maria Consuelo made a gesture to stop him.

But he was wise enough to see that the conversation had reached its
natural end, and his instinct told him that he should not outstay his
welcome. He pretended not to see the motion of her hand, and rose to
take his leave.

"You do not know me," he said. "To point out to me a possible generous
action, is to ensure my performing it without hesitation. When may I be
so fortunate as to see you again, Madame?"

"You need not be so intensely ceremonious. You know that I am always at
home at this hour."

Orsino was very much struck by this answer. There was a shade of
irritation in the tone, which he had certainly not expected, and which
flattered him exceedingly. She turned her face away as she gave him her
hand and moved a book on the table with the other as though she meant to
begin reading almost before he should be out of the room. He had not
felt by any means sure that she really liked his society, and he had not
expected that she would so far forget herself as to show her inclination
by her impatience. He had judged, rightly or wrongly, that she was a
woman who weighed every word and gesture beforehand, and who would be
incapable of such an oversight as an unpremeditated manifestation of
feeling.

Very young men are nowadays apt to imagine complications of character
where they do not exist, often overlooking them altogether where they
play a real part. The passion for analysis discovers what it takes for
new simple elements in humanity's motives, and often ends by feeding on
itself in the effort to decompose what is not composite. The greatest
analysers are perhaps the young and the old, who, being respectively
before and behind the times, are not so intimate with them as those who
are actually making history, political or social, ethical or scandalous,
dramatic or comic.

It is very much the custom among those who write fiction in the English
language to efface their own individuality behind the majestic but
rather meaningless plural, "we," or to let the characters created
express the author's view of mankind. The great French novelists are
more frank, for they say boldly "I," and have the courage of their
opinions. Their merit is the greater, since those opinions seem to be
rarely complimentary to the human race in general