“‘While there’s life, there’s hope,’” quoted Eileen.

“But what if life’s parted you from her?”

“I wouldn’t let it, if I were a man.  I wouldn’t allow the girl to go out of my life.  It doesn’t sound a strong thing to do.”

“It might be, though, in some circumstances.  For instance, if a girl showed you very plainly she couldn’t be bothered with you, it would be weak to run after her, wouldn’t it?”

“I wonder,” said Eileen, “if a man’s a good judge of why a girl does things that she does?  Of course, I don’t know much.  But I feel he mightn’t be.  It’s so difficult for girls and men to understand each other, really.  Now there’s my brother Rags and our cousin Pobbles—­I mean, Portia.  Pobbles is her nickname.  You know we’re great on the most endlessly quaint nicknames in our family.  She’s quite a distant cousin of ours, otherwise she wouldn’t have such lots of money as she has. We’re church mice.  We’d be church worms if there were any!  But Rags was in love with Pobbles for years, and she wouldn’t believe it.  She thought, because she’s not exactly pretty, it must be her money he wanted.  They never understood each other a bit.  You mustn’t say anything about this, and I won’t say anything about what you tell me.  You will tell me about the girl, won’t you?  Maybe I can help.  You see, though I don’t know so very much about men yet—­except Rags—­I know a whole lot about girls.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” said Petro.  “I met a girl in rather a queer way—­sort of romantic, it seemed to me.  And the minute I saw her she stood out quite different from any one else I’d ever seen, like a red rose in a garden of pale-pink ones.  I couldn’t get her face out of my mind, or her voice out of my ears.  She was like my idea of a dryad.  It seemed she might turn into a tree if a man looked at her too long.  But I didn’t know I was in love.  I thought she just appealed to me, fascinated me somehow or other.  And I wanted to do things for her all the time.  I was always thinking of some excuse to be where she was.  I was looking forward to doing a lot more things—­I suppose it was only selfishness, because I wanted to make her like me, but I didn’t realize that till after she was gone.”

“Gone?” Eileen encouraged him.

“Yes.  She didn’t want me to do those things I’d been planning for her.  She wouldn’t have what I could do, or me, at any price.”

“Did you—­had you—­told her you cared?”

“Great Scott! no.  I hadn’t got nearly so far as that.  I told her I hoped to see her again, that if there was something I could do to help, I—­but she wasn’t taking any.  She seemed friendly and kind before that, which made it worse when she turned me down so hard.  I suppose she hadn’t minded much at first, but the more she saw of me the more she couldn’t stand for the shape of my nose or the way I talked, maybe.  She just got to feel that the sight of me hanging around would poison New York for her, and she intimated that her health would be better if I kept at the other end of the city.  You wouldn’t have had me continue to butt in, would you?”