"You understand me," he said. "I told you you do not comprehend, but you comprehend everything. It is that which enrages me. You have had experience. You know what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so insufferably innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I talk to you. It would be absurd. Now as to my career--what I said----" "Musa," she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude, "I want to tell you something. But you must promise to keep it secret. Will you?" He assented, impatient. "It is not possible!" he exclaimed, when she had told him that she belonged to precisely the category of human beings whom he hated and despised. "Isn't it?" said she. "Now I hope you see how little you know, really, about women." She laughed. "It is not possible!" he repeated. And then he said with deliberate ingenuousness: "I am so content. I am so happy. I could not have hoped for it. It is overwhelming. I am everything you like of the most idiotic, blind, stupid. But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you had loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne it. Your innocence is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me." "Musa," she remarked dryly; "I wish you would remember that you are in England. People do not talk in that way in England. It simply is not done. And I will not listen to it." Her voice grew a little tender. "Why can we not just be friends?" "It is folly," said he, with sudden disgust. "And it would kill me." "Well, then," she replied, receding. "You're entitled to die." He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a gesture. "You want me to marry you?" she questioned. "It is essential," he said, very seriously. "I adore you. I can't do anything because of you. I can't think of anything but you. You are more marvellous than anyone can be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!" "And suppose you are nothing to me?" "But it is necessary that you should love me!" "Why? I see no necessity. You want me--because you want me. That's all. I can't help it if you're mad. Your attitude is insulting. You have not given one thought to my feelings. And if I said 'yes' to you, you'd marry me whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself. It is the old attitude. And when I offer you my friendship, you instantly decline it. That shows how horribly French you are. Frenchmen can't understand the idea of friendship between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows what brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I should have nothing to gain by it. You'll be famous. Well, what do I care? Do you think it would be very amusing for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after by every silly creature in Paris or London or New York? Not quite! And I don't see myself. You don't like young girls. I don't like young men. They're rude and selfish and conceited. They're like babies."