"I am at a loss to interpret you," he said, after a moment's silence. "I will tell you the whole, then--I must tell you; your mistake forces it from me." She paused, drew a quick breath, and then went on, rapidly: "I love some one else. I have been very unhappy. Just after you came I received a letter which told me that he was soon to be married; he _is_ married now. I had an illness in consequence. You may remember my illness? I made up my mind then that I would root out the feeling if possible, no matter at what cost of pain and effort and long patience. You came in my way. I knew you were deeply attached elsewhere--" "How did you know it?" he said. He was leaning against the piano watching her; she stood with her hands folded, and pressed so tightly together that he could see the force of the pressure. "Never mind how; but quite simply and naturally. I said to myself that I would try to become interested in you, even if only to a small degree; I would do everything in my power to forward it. It would be an acquired interest; still, acquired interests can be deep. People can become interested in music, in pictures, in sports, in that way; why not, then, in persons also, since they are more human?" "That is the very reason--because they are too human," he answered. But she did not heed. "I have studied you; I have tried to find the good in you; I have tried to believe in you, to idealize you. I have given every thought that I could control to you, and to you alone, for two long months," she said, passionately, unlocking her hands, reddened with their pressure against each other, and turning away. "It has been a failure?" "Complete." "And if you had succeeded?" he asked, folding his arms as he leaned against the piano. "I should have been glad and happy. I should never have seen _you_ again, of course; but at least the miserable old feeling would have been laid at rest." "And its place filled by another as miserable!" "Oh no; it could never have been _that_," she said, with an emphasis of scorn. "You tried a dangerous remedy, Margaret." "Not so dangerous as the disease." "A remedy may be worse than a disease. In spite of your scornful tone, permit me to tell you that if you had succeeded at all, it would have been in the end by loving me as you loved--I mean love--this other man. While I, in the meantime, am in love (as you are kind enough to inform me--hopelessly) with another woman! Is Beatrice a friend of yours?" "My dearest friend." "Has it never occurred to you that you were playing towards her rather a traitorous part?" "Never." "Supposing, during this experiment of yours, that I had fallen in love with you?"