"You know, perhaps, why I ran away?" I said.

"Perhaps I do," he answered, taking a seat near me. "However, though it
is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas YOU can."

"Then I will do so. I ran away because I was angry with you--well, not
angry, but grieved. I always have an idea that you despise me for being
so young."

"Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?" he
replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, "and
why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of
the people among whom I mostly have to live? It is because I found out
at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity."

"Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed--but only
to people in whom I trust," I said.

"Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we
are not friends yet, Nicolas. Remember how, when we were speaking of
friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one
another implicitly."

"I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never
repeat a word of what I might tell you," I said.

"Yet perhaps the most interesting and important thoughts of all are
just those which we never tell one another, while the mean thoughts
(the thoughts which, if we only knew that we had to confess them to