"
"It couldn't be any of these whipper-snappers of boys: she's not
that sort," worried the doctor. "Sophy, is it--Jelnik?"
My heart stood still. I could make no reply.
"I don't know. My dear friend, I don't know!"
"It would be the most natural thing in the world," he reflected.
"Jelnik looks like Prince Charming himself. And, for all his surface
indolence, there's genius in the man. Why shouldn't she be taken
with him?"
We looked at each other.
"I see," said the doctor, quietly. "Now, little friend, what
concerns you and me is our dear girl's happiness. Does Jelnik care,
do you think?"
"I don't know!" I said again. I felt like one on the rack. It seemed
to me I could hear my heart-strings stretching and snapping. "But
what is one girl's affection to a man born to be loved by women?"
"He is indifferent to women, for the most part," the doctor said
thoughtfully. "He is so free from vanity, and at the same time so
reserved, that one has difficulty in getting at his real feelings."
"She, also, is free from petty vanity," I told him. "She has an
innocent, happy pleasure in her own youth and prettiness, but hers
is the unspoiled heart of a child.
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