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 find it in my heart to treat one so inexperienced with indifference or contempt. Well, fortunately it was not too late to repair my fault, and I determined that, when an opportunity should offer, I would politely but firmly put out of the question her further interference in my affairs. Thenceforward all between us should be of the most strictly formal nature. It might make a great difference to her, but after all, she had brought the rebuke upon herself. The result of my noticing her had been exactly what I might have foreseen. She had been carried away by it, and now — well, she was flinging herself at my head. In the privacy of these memoirs I can make this admission, which otherwise, while undeniably true, would not be kind or manly.

The privacy of these memoirs. The phrase reminds me that there are a few words of explanation which should have been written some distance back.

When you desire to see yourself as others