"No," said he.
"I've been thinking about it. At first I was startled—very much startled. But I soon began to look at it sensibly. I want you to stay. Richard wants you to stay. There's no reason why you shouldn't stay and conquer your delusion."
"It's no delusion."
"Real love is always mutual. So yours must be delusion." She was pointing a thread for the eye of the needle. "You've led a very—very man sort of life, haven't you?"
He shifted uncomfortably, then confessed: "You know the standards for men are different from those for women."
She smiled, threaded the needle. "Yes, I know. I don't understand, but I know. You needn't explain. I don't want to understand. It doesn't interest me. As I was about to say—" Her courage failed her, and she sewed a while in silence. At last she dared. It was with no sign of inward disturbance, but the contrary, that she went on: "You've been shut in here too long. Go to your old haunts for a few days. You'll come back cured."
She had practiced saying it, this advice which she believed wise and necessary in the circumstances. She said it in calm, matter-of-fact fashion; and it was the less difficult for her to do so because, in thought at least, she had long since emancipated herself from what she regarded as the hypocrisies of modesty, and had taught herself to look at all things rationally and humanly. She knew her frankness would not please him; so she was not surprised when after a pause he said roughly, "I don't like to hear you say that sort of thing."
She laughed pleasantly, put quite at ease by his impertinence. "And I don't in the least care whether you approve of me or not. You men seem to think you've got a sort of general roving commission to superintend the propriety of women."
"I beg your pardon."
"Certainly. Give me that pair of scissors—on the stand in the corner."