Gray had once told Barbara Parker that there was no one quite like him--a remark more egotistical in the sound than in the meaning. Unusual in many ways he probably was, but, like most men, the discovery that his proudest virtues were linked with vices of which he was ashamed struck him as extraordinary. As if nature were not forever aiming at a balance.
In spite of the fact that he was impulsive, headstrong, swift in most things, this girl possessed the unique faculty of rendering him acutely self-conscious, and it annoyed him the more, therefore, to find how timorous he could be in putting her feelings to the test. That was the one thing he could never quite summon courage to do. She was so young, so cool, so disconcertingly straightforward that, in contrast, his own age appeared the gr
