“But why?”
“Because I hope to be let alone hereafter.”
At that her anger rose.
“Do you think that is the way a man should speak to a woman?”
“It seems to be the only way to make a woman understand. And even then––”
She felt that he shrugged his shoulders in the darkness.
“Then I’m sorry for the women you have known!” she retorted.
“That should make it all the easier for you to avoid any more accidents in my part of the Park,” he answered unperturbed. “It’s your own fault if I’m rude. I haven’t forced my attentions upon you. If you feel that you’ve been mistreated, there’s another reason––that makes four, doesn’t it?––for my going to Huntington’s. We’ll be there in five minutes. You can tell him.”
She could find no answer to all this. Brutal as it was, she knew that she had deserved it. Her anger fell away, for she had found already that she could not be angry with him long; and now, even in her torment, she began to be sorry for him, wondering what he had passed through that had so hardened and embittered him.