It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it.
He did so. After a little he told her about _Aliris: A Romance of all
Time_, in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main
idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her. He
was very young, you see, and very inexperienced; he threw himself
generously, without reserve, on this girl's sympathies in a manner of
which, assuredly, he should have been quite ashamed. Only the very
young are not ashamed.
The girl listened, at first half amused. Then she was touched, for she
saw that it was sincere, and youthful, and indicative of clear faith
in what is beautiful, and in fine ideals of what is fitting. Perhaps,
dimly, she perceived that this is good stuff of which to make a man,
provided it springs from immaturity, and not from the sentimentalism of
degeneracy. The loss of it is a price we pay for wisdom. Some think the
price too high.
As he talked on in this moonshiny way, really believing his ridiculous
abstractions the most important things in the world, gradually she too
became young. She listened with parted lips, and in her great eyes the
soul rose and rose within, clearing away the surface moods as twilight
clears the land of everything but peace.
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