“Mr. Hodge,” she said, “if I did anything to offend you, if I was offensive, I beg your pardon.”
“Yes, you beg my pardon, but you will go on regarding me as an addle-pated boy. If I dared open my lips to honestly tell you of my admiration, you would laugh at me! Oh, I know! You are like them all—only handsomer and colder!”
“You have a fancy that you have read me, Bart Hodge, but let me tell you that you are a very poor judge of human nature. You seldom read anybody aright.”
“It’s not such a difficult thing to read a woman,” he sneered. “They are all alike in one respect—they are as treacherous and fickle as cats! They think they love. They enjoy being petted and caressed. They purr and show all sorts of affection, but they are shallow. No more than a cat do they know true affection! As ready as a cat are they to sink their claws into the hand that caresses them! And when their master is gone, like a cat, they seek petting and fondling from another. They cannot be constant till the master returns; they cannot be true to death and after—like a faithful dog!”
Stella Stanley was rather high-spirited, and it made her “hot” to hear anybody talk in such a manner.
“You are trying your best to insult me now,” she said, “and you are succeeding very well! I’d like to tell you what I think of men like you, but I haven’t the time, and I don’t choose to waste my breath on you now. In some respects, I admire you; in others, I despise you. You are like all men, thoroughly unjust toward women. Other men may hide their thoughts, but you speak out; that is the difference. Men talk of the fickleness of women, but experience shows that women are far more constant than men. Once a woman loves a man truly, with all her heart and soul, she never loves another like that. She gives that man all that is best of her. What does she receive in return? If he provides her a home, clothes, food, he thinks he is doing his full duty. Don’t talk to me of the fickleness of women!” she hissed. “Don’t ever dare speak to me again like this, Bart Hodge! Sometimes I think I admire you, but when you show yourself as you have just now, I despise you!”
With that she left him; but she did not despise him, for all of her words.
And Bart? He was trembling all over.
“By Heaven!” he hoarsely whispered. “I could love her, but I won’t!”