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‘I can’t pretend to console you,’ said the girl, who, all still
as she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward
triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six
months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was
gallant; there was no better man than he. But her answer
remained.
‘It’s very well you don’t try to console me; it wouldn’t be
in your power,’ she heard him say through the medium of
her strange elation.
‘I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear
you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But
when you do that—the pain’s greater than the pleasure.’
And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for
her companions.
‘I don’t want to make you feel that; of course I can’t say
that. I only just want you to know one or two things—in
fairness to myself, as it were. I won’t return to the subject
again. I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year; I
couldn’t think of anything else. I tried to forget—energeti-
cally, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody
else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my
duty. I didn’t succeed. It was for the same purpose I went
abroad—as far away as possible. They say travelling dis-
tracts the mind, but it didn’t distract mine. I’ve thought of
you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I’m exactly the
same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you
then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you
shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you
just insuperably charm me. There—I can’t say less. I don’t

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