“You mean,” he answered at once, “that you will show me how to behave. But I have done with all that hypocrisy.” He rose with the words, having finished, and, to my anger and astonishment, cleared the board, piecemeal and deliberately, and, piling all on the tray, gave the signal for its withdrawal. It disappeared instantly. Then he returned to his stool, and, pulling out pipe and tobacco, began to smoke placidly. Fury overcame me. “Have you not forgotten to ask my permission?” I cried. “Punctilio in a sewer!” he answered, puffing; “that is hardly to be expected.” I rose at once. “I wish to be by myself,” I said. He took his pipe from his lips. “You know the way. If you object to mine, there is the ladder in your room--and the skylight--and all the forest to choose from”--and he began to smoke again. I left him, without another word, and, ascending to my closet, dropped the trap with a slam. It was an outrage beyond endurance. I threw myself upon my bed, and wept tears of rage. What a fool I had been, what a fool, to commit my destinies to a savage! I had thought romance had come to find me, walking on two feet in the starlight, and all the time it had been leaving me, stumping sorrowfully away on its poor wooden legs. My soul gushed out in fresh mourning for the dear monster I had wronged. More than once I rose, in the full determination to fly and rejoin him. As often, the hopelessness of my position cast me down again. I had no idea where I was; I dared not face the prospect of wandering, lost and alone, in those savage solitudes. The wretch had played his part well--and for what? Why for me. The thought, at last, quieted my grief--brought me to a little reason. After all, I had been cold with him, something less than grateful. What had brought him to repudiate the customs of his caste? I fell into a fit of speculation. Perhaps it was in scorn of an order that had basely disinherited him. His words had seemed to imply so. Perhaps he had meant no more than to read me a lesson in feeling. I sighed. I was wilful and imperious, I knew, I said to myself. I had been spoilt a little, perhaps, by admiration, and my better qualities obscured. It was a wonder he could have seen anything to covet in me. Was it my part to convince him of his mistake? I sighed again, and then rose and walked about. Every detail of the tiny chamber was witness to the loving expectations he had formed of me. What was I to do? How climb down and keep my place in my own eyes?