"
"Ah," said Mavis, "that's the sort of difficult reading that you like.
It's too deep for me."
"It's plain as the nose on one's face, come to think of it. Sympathy
is the key-note. It enables you to look at things from both sides--to
put yourself in another man's place, and ask yourself the question,
What should I be thinking and doing, if I was him?--I should say if I
was he. In the old days I was very deficient in that. A fool just made
me angry. Now I try to put myself in his place." He paused, and
smiled. "Perhaps you'll say I'm there already--a fool myself."
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that;" and Mavis smiled too. "Not
_quite_ a fool, Will."
He went on analyzing his characteristics, talking with great interest
in the subject, and after a didactic style, but not with the heavy
egoistic method that he had often employed years ago.
"No, I never remarked that."
"You know," he said presently, "in spite of all my bounce, I was a
_shy_ man.
"It's the fact, Mav. And my shyness came between me and others. I
couldn't take them sufficiently free. I wanted all the overtures to
come from them, and I was too ready to draw in my horns if they didn't
seem to accept me straight at what I judged my own value.
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