"Don't deplore your deficiencies until it becomes necessary for you to enter the profession," said Arbuthnot. "I don't like to hear you speak of it," he added, with a touch of sharpness. "I don't deplore them," said Bertha. "And it is only one of my little jokes. But, if the fortunes of the Westoria lands depended on me, I am afraid they would be a dismal failure." "As they don't depend on you," he remarked, "doesn't it occur to you that you might as well leave them to Senator Planefield? I must confess it has presented itself to me in that light." "It is rather odd," she said, in a tone of reflection, "that though I have nothing whatever to do with them, they actually seem to have detained me in town for the last two weeks." "It is quite time you went away," said Arbuthnot. "I know that," she answered. "And I feel it more every day." She raised her eyes suddenly to his. "Laurence," she said, "I am not well. Don't tell Richard, but I think I am not well at all. I--I am restless and nervous--and--and morbid. I am actually morbid. Things trouble me which never troubled me before. Sometimes I lose all respect for myself. You know I always was rather proud of my self-control. I am not quite as proud of it as I used to be. About two weeks ago I--I positively lost my temper." He did not laugh, as she had been half-afraid he would. His manner was rather quiet; on the contrary--it was as if what she said struck him as being worth listening to with some degree of serious attention, though his reply was not exactly serious. "I hope you had sufficient reason," he said. "No," she answered. "I had no reason at all, which makes it all the more humiliating. I think I have been rather irritable for a month or two. I have allowed myself to--to be disturbed by things which were really of no consequence, and I have taken offence at things and--and--resented trifles, and it was the merest trifle which made me lose my temper--yes, actually lose my temper, and say what I did not intend to say, in the most open and abject manner. What could be more abject than to say things you did not intend to say? You know I never was given to that kind of thing." "No," he responded, "it cannot be said that you were." "It was so--so revolting to me after it was over," she went on, "that it seemed to make me more weak-minded than ever. When you once give way to your emotions it is all going down-hill--you do it again and again. I never did it before, but I have been on the verge of doing it two or three times since." "Don't go any farther than the verge," he said. "I don't intend to," she answered. "I don't like even the verge. I resent it with all my strength. I should like to invent some kind of horrible torture to pay myself for--for what I did." He was watching her very closely, but she was not aware of it. She had arrested his attention completely enough by this time, and the fact made itself evident in his intent and rather startled expression.