"Of me!" I repeated incredulously.
"Well, of herself, too."
"Why?"
"I couldn't tell you why. You know Thusis and I differ in some things.
Thusis has her own ideas--about--the world in general. And I'm afraid
her ideas are rather old fashioned, and that they are going to make her
unhappy."
"Can't you tell me what her ideas are?" I asked.
"No. She may tell you if she chooses. But it isn't likely that she
will. Anyway they are not my ideas. My opinion is that the way to be
happy is to accept the world as it is, not as it was or should be."
"You are quite wonderful, Clelia."
"Oh, no, I'm not. I'm just a human girl who desires to be happy and who
detests gloom of all sorts--gloomy ideals, gloomy pride, gloomy
conventions that wrap their shrouds around the living and stifle them in
a winding sheet of tradition."
I was astonished to hear this girl so fluently express herself. In her
soft, fresh, brilliant beauty she seemed to have stepped but yesterday
across the frontiers of adolescence.
"So, if you kiss me," she said, "I don't think the world is going to
tumble to pieces. Do you?"
"I do not."
"However," she added, "if Thusis felt the way I do about the world, I
wouldn't think of letting you kiss me."
I didn't understand, and I said so. But she laughed and refused to
explain.
"Life is short and full of sorrow," she said. "And the world is full of
war and we'll all get hurt, sooner or later, I think. What a pity!
Because the world really is lovely. And when one is young, and just
beginning to fall in love with life, one is naturally inclined to taste
what few delights are offered between these storms of death--brief
glimpses of sunshine, Monsieur, that gleam for a few moments between the
thunderous clouds that darken all the world.... So, if you choose to
kiss me----"
We sat quite motionless and in silence for a while. Then:
"How about Smith?" I asked tersely.
"Monsieur Smith?" she repeated, flushing. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't know.... I wondered--wondered----"
"_What?_"
"How he'd feel about my kissing you. He might not like it, you know."
"You mean to tell him!" she exclaimed in dismay.
"No, of course not! But suppose he sauntered around the corner--during
the process----"
Clelia laughed: "It might do him infinite good," she said, "to see that
_somebody_ is willing to kiss me----"
"What!"
"--Because _he_ won't. And he knows, I think, that he could if he asked
to."
"Good heavens!" I said, "I thought Smith had become sentimental over
you, Clelia!"
"He is a very gloomy young man," said the girl with decision.
"But isn't he very evidently enamored of you?"
"He's too respectful."