It was always open to him to accuse her of seeing him but as the
most harmless of maniacs, and this, in the long run--since it
covered so much ground--was his easiest description of their
friendship. He had a screw loose for her but she liked him in
spite of it and was practically, against the rest of the world, his
kind wise keeper, unremunerated but fairly amused and, in the
absence of other near ties, not disreputably occupied. The rest of
the world of course thought him queer, but she, she only, knew how,
and above all why, queer; which was precisely what enabled her to
dispose the concealing veil in the right folds. She took his
gaiety from him--since it had to pass with them for gaiety--as she
took everything else; but she certainly so far justified by her
unerring touch his finer sense of the degree to which he had ended
by convincing her. SHE at least never spoke of the secret of his
life except as "the real truth about you," and she had in fact a
wonderful way of making it seem, as such, the secret of her own
life too. That was in fine how he so constantly felt her as
allowing for him; he couldn't on the whole call it anything else.
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