“But what for?” she murmured.
“I did n't know I loved you,” he said slowly, as if recalling with difficulty, and from a great distance, his motives, “and I thought it was kind to cure you of your love for me by pretending to be a fool. I think I must have been crazy, don't you?” and he smiled in a dazed, deprecating way.
Her face from being very pale began to flush. First a red spot started out in either cheek; then they spread till they covered the cheeks; next her forehead took a roseate hue, and down her neck the tide of color rushed, and she stood there before him a glowing statue of outraged womanhood, while in the midst her eyes sparkled with scorn.
“You wanted to cure me,” she said at last, in slow, concentrated tones, “and you have succeeded. You have insulted me as no woman was ever insulted before.”
She paused as if to control herself; for her voice trembled with the last words. She shivered, and her bosom heaved once or twice convulsively. Her features quivered; scorching tears of shame rushed to her eyes, and she burst out hysterically:—
“For pity's sake never let me see you again!”
And then he found himself alone.