"Lower? Are not all human beings alike?"
"Oh, yes! All beings are alike as two berries, youths and old men, men and women, Hottentots and Frenchmen, certainly they are alike! Look at us two only! Perfectly alike, the only difference is that I have a beard! Pardon, my lady, now I see that you have recovered I will leave you. A pleasant sleep!"
He had arisen and taken his hat, but the next moment the girl stood at his side with both his hands clasped in hers and with the same glances with which she for the first time had vanquished him, she begged him to stay!
Under these burning glances and hand pressures he felt something as he thought a young girl might feel when she stood under the influence of a seducer's passionate attack. He became perturbed and inwardly there arose a feeling of violated bashfulness, and injured manliness. He freed his hands, drew himself back and said in a calm voice, cutting in its affected coldness:
"Consider!"
"Stay, or I shall seek you in your room!" rang the excited voice of the girl, which seemed to imply a threat from which there was no appeal.
"Then I shall lock my door!"
"Are you a man, you?" rang the challenge with a hard laugh.
"Yes, in such a high degree that I will be both the selector and attacker, and I do not like to be seduced!"
With this he went out and heard behind him a noise as from a human body falling and striking against furniture.