He told it with his hesitation augmented by the length of time it had taken him to make up his mind. “She replied in a way that was no explanation. She said ‘The sad part of it is, Nick, that no matter what happens everyone will be sorry for you. No one will be sorry for me. And yet, it seems to me that somebody should be able to see my side of it. Somebody should be sorry for me. It’s very little to ask--that someone be sorry for me.’ I’m sure that this is, word for word, what she said; it made such a peculiar impression on me that I can’t forget it. Her side of--what?” He had, I made out, come to this question in his talk with her; for he said that he had eventually asked her bluntly: “Then, if you don’t want me, what’s the matter with me?” And she had asked: “Is that beyond a man’s comprehension?” This was so characteristic of Eva that I enjoyed it heartily. It was possible to talk in private, in this waiting-room: no one so much as glanced at us. “You will see, in a minute, that I went into telling you this rigmarole because it bears on her as yet unspoken wishes for the summer. You see, I shouted at her. There are times when she makes a fellow feel that there’s nothing left but to shout at her. She has that dear little smile that’s the most withdrawn thing in the world. I think--” and he too enjoyed it--“that if once I brought myself to the pitch of shaking the breath out of her I’d get my bearings. And at the present time, I assure you, I am away off in my calculations.” Again it had helped, that we had shared our amusement. “What did she say when you shouted at her?” “She withdrew!” His baffled shake of his head was comic. “And then she announced, as a result of her cogitation, that she didn’t really believe she wanted a man at all. You see? She started in by almost making love, and she swung around to a statement like that--to her husband! The fact,” he added slowly, “that I fail to understand a thing about her is a constant fillip. I mean, I am crazy over her. I never saw her equal.” I suggested: “You can’t get around it that she is Eva Litchfield.” “Which doesn’t mean a thing,” he said heatedly. “I don’t stop to remember that she has sense. In fact, I often doubt that she has.” “You don’t see that side of her?” “Do you?” “Yes. How can you fail to see it?” He shrugged this off. “I was--I think, at any rate, that I was--going to tell you how I came to my suspicion that she’s planning something in the way of running off again, this summer. And I wanted to ask if you couldn’t arrange to go to whatever place she selects?” I replied promptly that this was impossible. I added, significantly, that I had my own work to consider. He looked at me with more sympathy than he had yet shown. “Exactly! She’s a devastating influence on another’s work.” “You’ve felt this?” With no right to ask, I still was determined to find out.