“The reflection,” she remarked, helping herself to another roll, “seems to annoy you.”
“It does,” he confessed. “I do not like to feel impelled to do anything the reason for which is not apparent. I like to do just the things which seem likely to work out best for myself.”
“How you must hate me!” she murmured.
“No, I do not hate you,” he replied, “but, on the other hand, you have certainly been a trouble to me. First of all, I told a falsehood at the boarding-house, and I prefer always to tell the truth when I can. Then I followed you out of the house, which I disliked doing very much, and I seem to have spent a considerable portion of the time since, in your company, under somewhat extraordinary circumstances. I do not understand why I have done this.”
“I suppose it is because you are a very good-hearted person,” she remarked.
“But I am not,” he assured her, calmly. “I am nothing of the sort. I have very little sympathy with good-hearted people. I think the world goes very much better when every one looks after himself, and the people who are not competent to do so go to the wall.”
“It sounds a trifle selfish,” she murmured.
“Perhaps it is. I have an idea that if I could phrase it differently it would become philosophy.”
“Perhaps,” she suggested, smiling across the table at him, “you have really done all this because you like me.”
“I am quite sure that it is not that,” he declared. “I feel an interest in you for which I cannot account, but it does not seem to me to be a personal one. Last night,” he continued, “when I was sitting there waiting, I tried to puzzle it all out. I came to the conclusion that it was because you represent something which I do not understand. I am very curious and it always interests me to learn. I believe that must be the secret of my interest in you.”