"Have they taught you to hate me already?" he asks, in a low, compressed tone, that make her nerves assert themselves.
"I have been taught nothing," she says, with a most successful grasp at dignity. "They do not speak of you at the Towers,—at least, not unkindly." She looks at him as she says this, but lowers her eyes as she meets his. This dark, vehement young man almost frightens her.
"Yet, in spite of what you say, you turn from me, you despise me," exclaims he, with some growing excitement.
"Why should I despise you?" asks she, slowly, opening her eyes.
The simple query confounds him more than might a more elaborate one put by a clever worldling. Why indeed?
"I was thinking about this impending lawsuit," he stammers, uneasily. "You know of it, of course? Yet why should I be blamed?"
"No one blames you," says Mona; "yet it is hard that Nicholas should be made unhappy."
"Other people are unhappy, too," says the Australian, gloomily.
"Perhaps they make their own unhappiness," says Mona, at random. "But Nicholas has done nothing. He is good and gentle always. He knows no evil thoughts. He wishes ill to no man."
"Not even to me?" with a sardonic laugh.