Perpetua makes a rapid movement toward a side table, takes a flower from a bouquet there, and throws it at the professor. There is no excuse to be made for her beyond the fact that her heart feels breaking, and people with broken hearts do strange things every day. "I would give a flower to _anyone_!" says she in a quick scornful fashion. The professor catches the ungraciously given gift, toys with it, and--keeps it. Is that small action of his unseen? "I hope," he says in a dull way, "that you are not angry with him because he came first to me. It was a sense of duty--I know, I _feel_--compelled him to do it, together with his honest diffidence about your affection for him. Do not let pride stand in the way of----" "Nonsense!" says Perpetua, with a rapid movement of her hand. "Pride has no part in it. I do not care for Mr. Hardinge--I shall not marry him." A little mist seems to gather before the professor's eyes. His glasses seem in the way, he drops them, and now stands gazing at her as if disbelieving his senses. In fact he does disbelieve in them. "Are you sure?" persists he. "Afterwards you may regret----" "Oh, no!" says she, shaking her head. "_Mr. Hardinge_ will not be the one to cause me regret." "Still think----" "Think! Do you imagine I have not been thinking?" cries she, with sudden passion. "Do you imagine I do not know why you plead his cause so eloquently? You want to get _rid_ of me. You are _tired_ of me. You always thought me heartless, about my poor father even, and unloving, and--hateful, and----" "Not heartless; what have I done, Perpetua, that you should say that?" "Nothing. That is what I _detest_ about you. If you said outright what you were thinking of me, I could bear it better." "But my thoughts of you. They are----" He pauses. What _are_ they? What are his thoughts of her at all hours, all seasons? "They are always kind," says he, lamely, in a low tone, looking at the carpet. That downward glance condemns him in her eyes--to her it is but a token of his guilt towards her. "They are _not_!" says she, with a little stamp of her foot that makes the professor jump. "You think of me as a cruel, wicked, worldly girl, who would marry _anyone_ to gain position." Here her fury dies away. It is overcome by something stronger. She trembles, pales, and finally bursts into a passion of tears that have no anger in them, only an intense grief. "I do not," says the professor, who is trembling too, but whose utterance is firm. "Whatever my thoughts are, _your_ reading of them is entirely wrong."