al! But what a pity you should be
mistaken. How came you to think of her?"

"She doesn't like me, and you always put me on trial after she's been
here."

"Am I putting you on trial now? It's your guilty conscience! Why
shouldn't Mary Enderby like you?"

"Because I'm not good enough."

"Oh! And what has that to do with people's liking you? If that was a
reason, how many friends do you think you would have?"

"I'm not sure that I should have any."

"And doesn't that make you feel badly?"

"Very." Jeff's confession was a smiling one.

"You don't show it!"

"I don't want to grieve you."

"Oh, I'm not sure that would grieve me."

"Well, I thought I wouldn't risk it."

"How considerate of you!"

They had come to a little barrier, up that way, and could go no further.
Jeff said: "I've just been interviewing another reformed pessimist."

"Mr. Westover?"

"You're preternatural, too. And you're not mistaken, either. Do you ever
go to his studio?"

"No; I haven't been there since he told me it would be of no use to come
as a student. He can be terribly frank."

"Nobody knows that better than I do," said Jeff, with a smile for the
notion of Westover's frankness as he had repeatedly experienced it. "But
he means well."

"Oh, that's what they always say. But all the frankness can't be well
meant. Why should uncandor be the only form of malevolence?"

"That's a good idea. I believe I'll put that up on Westover the next time
he's frank."

"And will you tell me what he says?"

"Oh, I don't know about that." Jeff lay back in his chair at large ease
and chuckled. "I should like to tell you what he's just been saying to
me, but I don't believe I can."

"Do!"

"You know he was up at Lion's Head in February, and got a winter
impression of the mountain. Did you see it?"

"No. Was that what you were talking about?"

"We talked about something a great deal more interesting--the impression
he got of me."

"Winter impression."

"Cold enough. He had come to the conclusion that I was very selfish and
unworthy; that I used other people for my own advantage, or let them use
themselves; that I was treacherous and vindictive, and if I didn't betray
a man I couldn't be happy till I had beaten him. He said that if I ever
behaved well, it came after I had been successful one way or the other."

"How perfectly fascinating!" Bessie rested her elbow on the corner of the
table, and her chin in the palm of the hand whose