“Then why do you treat me as you do? Why do you despise me? You _do_ despise me! I know you do. Why do you feel that you ought to control yourself just because you have a desire to come and see me?” “Not because I despise you. I despise nobody. Who am I to----” “There you are again! Do you think I’m not clever enough to see the sly way you wriggle off the point? I’m not as clever as you, maybe, but I am clever enough to be hurt by what you say! The only way you can truthfully say you don’t despise me is by saying you don’t despise anybody! Do you really think I am dull enough not to see that? Oh, Mr. Verreker, what have I done? What _have_ I done?” “You are being foolish, Miss Weston.... You have----” “Miss Weston now, eh? Something else. Do you think I don’t notice these things? Do you know the last time you ever called me Cathie? I don’t suppose you remember, but I do: it was on May 19th last. Over six months ago.” “This is childish,” he muttered scornfully, and his lips curled in contempt. He turned away from her and began walking about the room. “Childish, is it?--Is it childish to be hurt at little things that show you’re going down--in the--estimation of people you--you--whom you like?” “I have given you no valid indication that you have gone down in my estimation.” “Do you deny that I have?” “It is a matter I do not care to discuss.... At any rate you have grossly exaggerated the whole affair....” “What I want to know is, why are you disappointed with me? Why have you left me alone this last fortnight?” “I have already told you that I wanted to see you very intensely.” “Why?” “I can think of no satisfactory reason.” “What do you mean by ‘satisfactory’?” “I mean what I say. I can think of no reason satisfactory to me--that satisfies me.” “And aren’t there any reasons at all why a normal person might wish to see me’?” “Arguing is quite useless if you accept as a hypothesis that I am a normal person.” “Aren’t there any reasons at all, then, why you might want to come and see me?” “Possibly there are.” “Couldn’t you think of any?” “No, I could not.” She became fiercely passionate again. “Mr. Verreker,” she said, “I’ll tell you one thing for your own good, and for the good of everybody you meet who gets to know you well. You ought to be more kind. You ought to consider other people’s feelings. You ought not to say things that hurt. You ought to put yourself on the level of people who feel. Do you know you have hurt me more than ever I have been hurt before?” She was crying now. She leaned on the back of a chair and bent her head on her hands. There was something very wildly tragic in her attitude.