cared for all of them, while I have cared for a good many people in whom I have not been at all interested.  But it is easier to say what the qualities are that repel affection, than what the qualities are which attract it.  I don’t think any faults prevent it, if people are sorry for their faults and are sorry to have hurt you.  It seems to me impossible to care for spiteful people, or for the people who turn on you in a sudden anger, and don’t want to be forgiven, but are glad to have made you fear them.  I don’t care for people who claim affection as a right, or who bargain for sacrifices.  The bargaining element must be wholly absent from affection.  The feeling ’it is your turn to be nice’ is fatal to it.  No, I think that it is a feeling that you can live at peace with the particular person that is the basis of friendship.  The element of reproach must be wholly absent:  I don’t mean the element of criticism—­that can be impersonal—­but the feeling ’you ought not to behave like this to me.’”

Father Payne relapsed into silence.  “But,” I said, “surely the people who make claims for affection are very often most beloved, even when they are unjust, inconsiderate, ill-tempered?”

“By women,” said Father Payne, “but not by men—­and there’s another difficulty.  Men and women mean such utterly different things by affection, that they can’t even discuss it together.  Women will do anything for you, if you claim their help, and make it clear that you need them; they will love you if you do that.  A man, on the other hand, will often do his very best to help you, if you appeal to him, but he won’t care for you, as a rule, in consequence.  Women like emotional surprises, men do not.  A man wants to get done with excitement, and to enter on an easy partnership—­women like the excitement more than the ease.  And then it is all complicated by the admixture of the masculine and feminine temperaments.  As a rule, however, women are interested in moody temperaments, and men are bored by them.  Personally, my own pleasure in meeting a real friend, or in hearing from a friend, is the pleasure of feeling ’Yes, you are there, just the same,’—­it’s the tranquillity that one values.  The possibility of finding a man angry or pettish is unpleasant to me.  I feel ‘so all this nonsense has to be cleared away again!’ I don’t want to be questioned and scrutinised, with a sense that I am on my trial.  I don’t mind an ironical letter, which shows that a friend is fully aware of my faults and foibles; but it’s an end of all friendship with me if I feel a man is bent on improving me, especially if it is for his own convenience.  I’m sure that the fault-finding element is fatal to affection.  That may sound weak, but I can’t be made to feel that I am responsible to other people.  I don’t recognise anyone’s right to censure me.  A man may criticise me if he likes, but he mustn’t impose upon me the duty of living up to his ideal.  I don’t believe that even God does that!”