"I--I--left--a book in--my room," answers Felicia, and she pushes past you and goes out of the door, and, though you don't know it at the time, she is as bewildered as you are. You walk up and down the floor two or three times, you open the door and shut it, finally you can't stand it any longer, you must find out how Felicia does. You go up to your room, and there on the bed is what is left of the gallant, saucy Felicia you know. It is a crumpled little heap, and you can see only a knot of disordered hair and shaking shoulders, and as if this wasn't bad enough, there is added the sound of muffled sobs. You go up to her and put a beseeching hand on her shoulder. "Felicia," you implore. Then from the depths of the pillow come the broken words: "Go--away--go--away--and--leave--me--alone." Nor is the tone all anguish, anger finds its place there as well, and this bewilders you still more. You could not know, of course, that Felicia is angry at you for having seen her cry. "I can't go away and leave you like this," you say. The shoulders shake still harder, the sobs are louder, for sympathy is hard to bear in such moments of humiliation--but this too you find out later. You walk across the room, helplessly, hopelessly. You murmur forth apologies, though you don't know for what you are apologizing, and words of endearment and of sympathy, though you can't tell what it is you are sympathetic about. You would do anything, abase yourself to any degree, to stop the noise of sobbing which is slowly sapping your manhood. You stand looking down on poor Felicia--what _is_ the matter with her? What has happened? "I don't believe you can be well, my darling," you are fool enough to say. Inside you your other self is grumbling: "Well, I'm hanged if _I_ understand women!" If only she would stop; she must have been crying ten minutes, and you have aged years. If only you understood why, how much easier it would be! The only thing you do understand is that whatever you say and whatever you do, or whether it's sympathy or silence, it's wrong. There is a knock on the door. "Dinner is served," says a voice, and you (feeling like a quitter, but you can't stand the sight of her any longer) say: "Felicia, I'm going down. I don't seem to be doing you any good----" Felicia raises her head. "You're not!" says she spitefully. They're the first words she has spoken since she pleaded with you in agonized tones to "let her be."