To break down! Why should you try to treat me so freezingly? You can't be angry with me still, after all these years! _C'est pas possible!_ PHILIP. It was stupid of me to attempt to hide my feelings. [_Pressing her hand to his lips._] But, my dear Otto--my dear girl--where's the use of our coming into each other's lives again? OTTOLINE. The use--? Why _shouldn't_ we be again as we were in the old Paris days--[_embarrassed_] well, not quite, perhaps----? PHILIP. [_Smiling._] Oh, of course, if you command it, I am ready to buy some smart clothes, and fish for opportunities of meeting you occasionally on a crowded staircase or in a hot supper-room. But--as for anything else---- OTTOLINE. [_Slowly withdrawing her hands and putting them behind her._] As for--anything else----? PHILIP. I repeat--_cui bono_? [_Regarding her kindly but penetratingly._] What would be the result of your reviving a friendship with an ill-tempered, intolerant person who would be just as capable to-morrow of turning upon you like a savage----? OTTOLINE. Ah, you _are_ still angry with me! [_With a change of tone._] As you did that evening, for instance, when I came with Nannette to your shabby little den in the Rue Soufflot---- PHILIP. Precisely. OTTOLINE. [_Walking away to the front of the fauteuil-stool._] To beg you to _proner_ my father and mother in the journal you were writing for--what was the name of it?---- PHILIP. [_Following her._] _The Whitehall Gazette._ OTTOLINE. And you were polite enough to tell me that my cravings and ideals were low, pitiful, ignoble! PHILIP. [_Regretfully._] You remember? OTTOLINE. [_Facing him._] As clearly as you do, my friend. [_Laying her hand upon his arm, melting._] Besides, they were true--those words--hideously true--as were many other sharp ones you shot at me in Paris. [_Turning from him._] Low--pitiful--ignoble----! PHILIP. Otto----! [_She seats herself in the chair by the fauteuil-stool and motions him to sit by her. He does so._ OTTOLINE. Yes, they were true; but they are true of me no longer. I am greatly changed, Philip. PHILIP. [_Eyeing her._] You are more beautiful than ever. OTTOLINE. H'sh!--changed in my character, disposition, view of things. Life has gone sadly with me since we parted. PHILIP. Indeed? I--I'm grieved. OTTOLINE. My marriage was an utter failure. You heard? PHILIP.