Not only was here a woman who was not bent on finding a husband, but it was a woman who wasn't a woman at all; who was genuinely appalled by the thought of a husband; who joyed in boys' games, and sentimentalized over such things as adventure; who was healthy and normal and wholesome, and who was so immature that a husband stood for nothing more than an encumbrance in her cherished scheme of existence.
But how to approach her?
He divined the fanatical love of freedom in her, the deep-seated antipathy for restraint of any sort.

No man could ever put his arm around her and win her.

She would flutter away like a frightened bird.

Approach by contact--that, he realized, was the one thing he must never do.

His hand-clasp must be what it had always been, the hand-clasp of hearty friendship and nothing more.