"It does. You mustn't think you're responsible for me just because you've adopted me." "Don't talk to me about adoption! When you know perfectly well what I did it for." "Why--what _did_ you do it for?" "To make things safe for us. To keep Fanny from knowing. To keep myself from knowing, Barbara. To keep you.... But it's too late to camouflage it. We know where we stand now." "I don't think _I_ do." "You do. You do." Mr. Waddington tossed his cigarette into the fire with a passionate gesture of abandonment. He came to her. She saw his coming. She saw it chiefly as the approach of a canary yellow waistcoat. She fixed her attention on the waistcoat as if it were the centre of her own mental equilibrium. There was a bend in the waistcoat. Mr. Waddington was stooping over her with his face peering into hers. She sat motionless, held under his face by curiosity and fear. The whole phenomenon seemed to her incredible. Too incredible as yet to call for protest. It was as if it were not happening; as if she were merely waiting to see it happen before she cried out. Yet she was frightened. This state lasted for one instant. The next she was in his arms. His mouth, thrust out under the big, rough moustache, was running over her face, like--like--while she pressed her hands hard against the canary yellow waistcoat, pushing him off, her mind disengaged itself from the struggle and reported--like a vacuum cleaner. That was it. Vacuum cleaner. He gave back. There was no evil violence in him, and she got on her feet. "How could you?" she cried. "How could you be such a perfect pig?" "_Don't_ say that to me, Barbara. Even in fun.... You know you love me." "I don't. I don't." "You do. You know you do. You know you want me to take you in my arms. Why be so cruel to yourself?" "To myself? I'd kill myself before I let you.... Why, I'd kill you." "No. No. No. You only think you would, you little spitfire." He had given back altogether and now leaned against the chimneypiece, not beaten, not abashed, but smiling at her in a triumphant certitude. For so long the glamour of his illusion held him. "Nothing you can say, Barbara, will persuade me that you don't care for me." "Then you must be mad. Mad as a hatter." "All men go mad at times. You must make allowances. Listen--" "I won't listen. I don't want to hear another word." She was going. He saw her intention; but he was nearer to the door than she was, and by a quick though ponderous movement he got there first. He stood before her with his back to the door. (He had the wild thought of locking it, but chivalry forbade him.) "You can go in a minute," he said. "But you've got to listen to me first. You've got to be fair to me. I may be mad; but if I didn't care for you--madly--I wouldn't have supposed for an instant that you cared for me. I wouldn't have thought of such a thing." "But I _don't_, I tell you." "And I tell you, you do. Do you suppose after all you've done for me--"