human
You say I'm an outsider. Then won't you take me in? I don't want to be an outsider. You mustn't think too badly of me for it because you see I have just stayed where I was put. But I want to know life. I love it now, and yet, easy and pleasant though it is, I can't say that I find it very satisfying. I have more than once felt it was cheating me. I'm not getting enough--just because I don't know. Loving a thing because you don't know it isn't a very high way of loving it, is it? I believe I could know it and still love it--love it, indeed, the more truly. No, you don't think so; but I want to try. She paused, thinking; then saw it and spoke it strongly.
gpt
I've never done anything real. I've never done anything that counted. That's why I'm an outsider. If making a place for you here is going to make one for me there--on the inside, I mean--you're not going to refuse to take me in, are you?
human
What do you know about me?
gpt
Not much. Only that you've met things I never had to meet, met them much better, doubtless, than I should have met them. Only that you've fought in the real, while I've flitted around here on the playground. Katie's eyes contracted to keenness.
human
And I wonder if there isn't more dignity in fighting--yes, and losing--in the real, than just sitting around where you get nothing more unpleasant than the faint roar of the guns. To lose fighting--or not to fight! Why certainly there can be no question about it. What do I know about you?
gpt
Only that you seemed just shot into my life, strangely disturbing it, ruffling it so queerly. It's too ruffled now to settle down without--more ruffling. So you're not going away leaving it in any such distressing state, are you?
human
But you don't know. You don't understand.
gpt
No, I don't know. And don't think I ever need know, as a matter of obligation. But should there ever come a time when you feel I would understand, understand enough to help, then I should be glad and proud to know, for it would make me feel I was no longer an outsider. And let me tell you something. In whatever school you learned about life, there's one thing they taught you wrong. They've developed you too much in suspicion. They didn't give you a big enough course in trust. All the people in this world aren't designing and cruel. Why the old globe is just covered with beautiful people who are made happy in doing things for the people about them.
human
I haven't met them,
gpt
I see you haven't; that's why I want you to. Your education has been one-sided. So has mine. Perhaps we can strike a balance. What would you think of our trying to do that?
human
You mean, she asked, in slow, hushed voice,
gpt
Stay here as a friend--and become a friend,
human
But I don't understand.
gpt
Try to understand. Stay here with me and learn to laugh and be foolish, that'll help you understand. And if you're ever in the least oppressed with a sense of obligation--horrid thing, isn't it?--just put it down with, 'But she likes it. It's fun for her.' For really now, Ann, I hope this is not going to hurt you, but I simply can't help getting fun out of things. I get fun out of everything. It's my great failing. Not a particularly unkind sort of fun, though. I don't believe you'll mind it as you get used to it. My friends all seem to accept the fact that I--enjoy them. And then my curiosity. Well, like the eggs. It's not entirely to make you stronger. It's to see whether the things I've always heard about milk and eggs are really so. See how it works--not altogether for the good of the works, you see? Oh, I don't know. Motives are slippery things, don't you think so? Mine seem particularly athletic. They hop from their pigeon holes and turn hand-springs and do all sorts of stunts the minute I turn my back. So I never know for sure why I want to do a thing. For that matter, I don't know why I named you Ann. I had to give you a name--I thought you might prefer my not using yours--so all in a flash I had to make one up--and Ann was what came. I love that name. It never would have come if something in you hadn't called it. The Ann in you has had a hard time. She was speaking uncertainly, timidly, as if on ground where words had broken no paths.
human
Oh, I'm not so much the outsider I can't see that. But the Ann in you has never died. That I see, too. Maybe it was to save Ann you were going to--give up Verna. And because I see Ann--like her--because I called her back, won't you let her stay here and-- Katie's voice broke, so to offset that she cocked her head and made a wry little face as she concluded, not succeeding in concealing the deep tenderness in her eyes,