"I will tell you what to think," she went on. "I have been very dull here. I wished from the first that I had never come. I hate the people, and I despise them more than I hate them. I must be amused and interested, and they are less than nothing. The person you speak of was different. I suppose what you say of him is true and he is a genius. I care nothing for that in itself, but he has managed to interest me. At first I thought him only absurd; he was of a low class and a common workman, and he was so simple and ignorant of the world that he did not feel his position or did not care. That amused me and I led him on to revealing himself. Then I found out that there was a difference between him and the rest of his class, and I began to study him. I have no sentimental notions about his honor and good qualities. Those things do not affect me, but I have been interested and the time has passed more easily. Now the matter will end just as it began,--not because I am tired of him or because I care for what people say, but because I think it is time,--and I choose that it should. It is done with from to-night." "Good heaven!" he cried. "You are not going to drop the poor fellow like that?" "You may call it what you please," she returned. "I have gone as far as I choose to go, and it is done with from to-night." Mr. Ffrench's excitement became something painful to see. Between his embarrassment as a weak nature before a strong one,--an embarrassment which was founded upon secret fear of unpleasant results,--between this and the natural compunctions arising from tendencies toward a certain refined and amiable sense of fairness, he well-nigh lost all control over himself and became courageous. He grew heated and flushed and burst forth into protest. "My dear," he said, "I must say it's a--a deuced ungentlemanly business!" Her lack of response absolutely inspired him. "It's a deuced ill-bred business," he added, "from first to last." She did not reply even to that, so he went on, growing warmer and warmer. "You have taunted me with being afraid of you," he said, "though you have never put it into so many words. Perhaps I have been afraid of you. You can make yourself confoundedly unpleasant at times,--and I may have shrunk from saying what would rouse you,--but I must speak my mind about this, and say it is a deucedly cruel and unfair thing, and is unworthy of you. A less well-bred woman might have done it." A little color rose to her cheek and remained there, but she did not answer still. "He is an innocent fellow," he proceeded, "an unworldly fellow; he has lived in his books and his work, and he knows nothing of women. His passion for you is a pure, romantic one; he would lay his world at your feet. Call it folly, if you will,--it _is_ folly,--but allow me to tell you it is worthy of a better object." He was so astonished at his own daring that he stopped to see what effect it had produced.