Especially for young girls who
were innocent and enthusiastic. But since he suspected himself of a
tendency to idealize these qualities, even to sentimentalize upon them,
he generally kept a cautious distance off. Rose, with the bloom that was
on her, and the glow that radiated from her the night he was introduced
to her at a dinner party at the Williamsons', had struck him--he was
unconscious of this mental process no doubt--as a person whom it would
be difficult, at close range, to remain quite level-headed about.
Consequently, though his and Rodney's common friendship for the Lakes
had drawn him rather intimately into their circle, his attitude toward
Rose herself throughout had remained deliberately detached and
impersonal. He was not in the least priggish about it. He was quite
willing to let it appear that he liked her and to admit that she liked
him. But their talk had always been not only objective, but about
objects comparatively remote; chorus-girls, for example, and Norse
sagas, to take at random two of his wide assortment of hobbies.
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