[_Shaking his head._] No. OTTOLINE. No? [_Smiling faintly._] I thought _everybody_ hears when a marriage is a failure. [_Mournfully._] The fact remains; it was a terrible mistake. Poor Lucien! I don't blame him for my nine years of unhappiness. I engaged myself to him in a hurry--out of pique---- PHILIP. Pique? OTTOLINE. Within a few hours of that fatal visit of mine to your lodgings. [_Looking at him significantly._] It was _that_ that drove me to it. PHILIP. [_Staring at her._] _That----!_ OTTOLINE. [_Simply._] Yes, Phil. PHILIP. Otto! OTTOLINE. [_Plucking at the arm of her chair._] You see--you see, notwithstanding the vulgarity of my mind, I had a deep respect for you. Even then there were wholesome signs in me! [_Shrugging her shoulders plaintively._] Whether I should have ended by obeying my better instincts, and accepting you, I can't say. I believe I should. I--I believe I should. At any rate, I had already begun to chafe under the consciousness that, while you loved me, you had no esteem for me. PHILIP. [_Remorsefully._] My dear! OTTOLINE. [_Raising her head._] That scene between us in the Rue Soufflot set my blood on fire. To have a request refused me was sufficiently mortifying; but to be whipped, scourged, scarified, into the bargain--! I flew down your stairs after I left you, and drove home, scorching with indignation; and next morning I sent for Lucien--a blind adorer!--and promised to be his wife. [_Leaning back._] _Comprenez-vous, maintenant?_ Solely to hurt _you_; to hurt you, the one man among my acquaintances whom I--admired! [_She searches for her handkerchief. He rises and goes to the mantelpiece and stares at the flowers in the grate._ PHILIP. [_Almost inaudibly._] Oh, Otto! OTTOLINE. [_Wiping a tear from her cheek._] Heigh, dear me! Whenever I go over the past, and that's not seldom, I can't help thinking you might have been a little gentler with me--a girl of three-and-twenty--and have made allowances. [_Blowing her nose._] What was Dad before he went out to Buenos Aires with his wife and children; only a junior partner in a small concern in the City! Wasn't it natural that, when he came back to Europe, prosperous but a nobody, he should be eager to elbow himself into a respectable social position, and that his belongings should have caught the fever? PHILIP. [_Wretchedly._] Yes--yes---- OTTOLINE.