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"Do you still think me 'superior,' Charmian?"

"Do you still dream of your impalpable, bloodlessly-perfect

ideals, sir?"

"No," I answered; "no, I think I have done with drea"

"And I have done with this, thy coat, for behold! it is

finished," and rising, she folded it over the back of my chair

Now, as she stood thus behind htly upon my shoulder

"Peter"

"Yes, Charmian"

"I wish, yes, I do wish that you were either er or

very much older"

"Why?"

"Because you wouldn't be quite so--so cryptic--such a very

abstruse problem Sometimes I think I understand you better than

you do yourself, and soer I could read you easily for myself, and, if you were

older, you would read yourself for !" said I

"No, you were always too repressed, Peter"

"Yes, perhaps I was"

"Repression is good up to a certain point, but beyond that it is

dangerous," said she, with a portentous shake of the head

"Heigho! was it a week or a year ago that you avowed yourself