 you is this: that I
remained on purpose, but I didn't know for what purpose I remained. Really, that
couldn't be expected ... Why do you sigh like this? Would you have preferred me
to be idiotically innocent or abominably wise?«
    »These are not the questions that trouble me,« I said. »If I sighed it is
because I am weary.«
    »And getting stiff, too, I should say, in this Pompeiian armchair. You had
better get out of it and sit on this couch as you always used to do. That, at
any rate, is not Pompeiian. You have been growing of late extremely formal, I
don't know why. If it is a pose then for goodness' sake drop it. Are you going
to model yourself on Captain Blunt? You couldn't, you know. You are too young.«
    »I don't want to model myself on anybody,« I said. »And anyway Blunt is too
romantic; and, moreover, he has been and is yet in love with you - a thing that
requires some style, an attitude, something of which I am altogether incapable.«
    »You know it isn't so stupid, what you have just said. Yes, there is
something in this.«
    »I am not stupid,« I protested, without much heat.
    »Oh, yes, you are. You don't know the world enough to judge. You don't know
how wise men can be. Owls are nothing to them. Why do you try to look like an
owl? There are thousands and thousands of them waiting for me outside the door:
the staring, hissing beasts. You don't know what a relief of mental ease and
intimacy you have been to me in the frankness of gestures and speeches and
thoughts, sane or insane, that we have been throwing at each other. I have known
nothing of this in my life but with you. There had always been some fear, some
constraint, lurking in the background behind everybody, everybody - except you,
my friend.«
    »An unmannerly, Arcadian state of affairs. I am glad you like it. Perhaps
it's because you were intelligent enough to perceive that I was not in love with
you in any sort of style.«
    »No, you were always your own self, unwise and reckless and with something
in it kindred to mine, if I may say so without offence.«
    »You may say anything without
