“How many times have I got to tell you,” cried he heatedly, “that I don’t care for you in that way—any more than you care for me?”
She was all gentleness and freedom from guile. “But every time you say that, you say it angrily—and then I know you don’t mean it.”
“But I do mean it!”
Her face looked stubbornly unconvinced.
“I tell you, I do mean it!” he repeated with angry energy.
“You are mad at yourself for liking me so much.”
He made a gesture of despair. “Well, have it your way—if it pleases you better to think so.” He rose and stood before her, his hands thrust deep into the outside pockets of his loose sack coat. “Whatever I may or may not think of you, I am not going to marry anybody. Do I make myself clear?”
“But everybody gets married,” said she innocently. “Oh, Chang, why do you want to be eccentric?” And up into his gazed the childlike eyes. “You told me yourself that eccentricity was a stupid caricature of originality.”
“Eccentric—eccentric,” he muttered, for lack of anything else to say. What an impossible creature to talk seriously with! She was always flying off at a tangent. Controlling his exasperation he said in a low, intense voice: “Eccentric or not, I am not going to marry. Do you understand? I—am—not—going—to—marry.”
“Why do you get angry?” she pleaded sweetly. “It’s unreasonable. I can’t make you marry me—can I? I don’t want to marry you if you don’t want to marry me—do I?”