I told her that she really knew Pickering
better than I did, and that until we met at Homburg I had not seen him
since he was a boy.
"But he talks to you freely," she answered; "I know you are his
confidant. He has told me certainly a great many things, but I always
feel as if he were keeping something back; as if he were holding
something behind him, and showing me only one hand at once. He seems
often to be hovering on the edge of a secret. I have had several
friendships in my life--thank Heaven! but I have had none more dear to me
than this one. Yet in the midst of it I have the painful sense of my
friend being half afraid of me; of his thinking me terrible, strange,
perhaps a trifle out of my wits. Poor me! If he only knew what a plain
good soul I am, and how I only want to know him and befriend him!"
These words were full of a plaintive magnanimity which made mistrust seem
cruel. How much better I might play providence over Pickering's
experiments with life if I could engage the fine instincts of this
charming woman on the providential side! Pickering's secret was, of
course, his engagement to Miss Vernor; it was natural enough that he
should have been unable to bring himself to talk of it to Madame
Blumenthal.
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