Now, whether they did not
notice me, or took me for the porter standing there, they went on with
what they had been saying.
"Quite so," says the engineer. "And it won't be any different. I can't see
what you've got to feel lonely about."
"Oh, you know well enough!" she answered.
"No, I don't, and I do think you might be a little more cheerful."
"You wouldn't like it if I were. You'd rather have me stay as I am,
miserable and wretched, because you don't care for me any more."
He stopped on the stairs abruptly. "Really, I think you must be mad," he
said.
"I dare say I am," she answered.
How poorly she held her own in a quarrel! It was always so with her. Why
could she not be careful of her words, and answer so as to wound him,
crush him altogether?
He stood with one hand on the stair-rail and said:
"So you think it pleases me to have things going on like this? I tell you
it hurts me desperately--has done for a long time past."
"And me," she answered. "But now I'll have no more of it.
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