“You always joke, but I’m in sober earnest.” She indeed spoke almost solemnly, and with an impressive fervour in her voice. “You do impress me just like that. I wish you’d believe that I’m saying exactly what I feel. Mind, I expressly said, I don’t suppose for a minute that other men are like you.” “No, you’re right there,” he broke in. Her manner, even more than the speech, affected him curiously. He drained his liqueur at a gulp, stared out of the window, fidgetted on his chair, finally rose to his feet. “You’re right there!” he reiterated, biting his cigar and thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. She would have risen also, but he signed to her to sit still. “Other men are not like me, and they can thank God that they’re not. They know enough to keep sober; I don’t. They are of some intelligent use in the world; I’m not. They lead cleanly and decent lives, they control themselves, they make names for themselves, they do things which are of some benefit at least to _somebody_. Ah-h! You hit the nail on the head. They _are_ different from, me!” She gazed up at him, dumb with sheer surprise. He took a few aimless steps up and down, halted to scowl out of the window at the signs opposite, and then flung himself into the chair again. Sprawling his elbows on the table, he bent forward and fastened upon her a look of such startled intensity that she trembled under it and drew back. “Why, do you know, you foolish little girl,” he began, in a hoarse, declamatory voice, “that a few minutes before you came along, there on the bridge, I was going to throw myself into the river, because I wasn’t fit to live. Do you realize that I had sat in judgment upon myself, and condemned myself to death--death, mind you!--because I was an utterly hopeless creature, a waste product, a drunkard, a sterile fool and loafer, a veritable human swine? That is the truth! Do you know where I spent last night--where I woke up, sick with disgust for myself, this morning? No, you don’t; and there’s no need that I should tell you.” “I don’t care!” The girl’s lips propelled the words forth with extraordinary swiftness, but the eyes with which she regarded her companion, and the rest of her face, grown pale once more, remained unmoved. “No, _you_ don’t care!” he groaned out a long sigh, and went on with waning vigour. “But _I_ care! It is something to _one_ that I am what I am; that I have wasted my life, that I have done nothing, and worse than nothing, with my chances, that I----” “You misunderstand me,” Vestalia interposed, with a perturbed simulation of calm. “What I meant was that whatever happened last--that is, at any time before this morning--makes no difference whatever in my--my liking for you.” Her eyes brightened at the thought of something. “It was you yourself who said we would wipe the slate clean, and begin all over again quite fresh. Don’t you remember? And we were to have our own fairy story, all to ourselves. You do remember, don’t you?”