Katya whispered: “Poor old Toto!”
“You know how I honoured your father and mother,” he said. “They were all the parents I ever knew. Well, you know all about that.... And then I had to break the news to you.... Good God!”
He drew his hands down his face.
“Poor old Toto!” Katya said slowly again. “I remember.”
“And you won’t make any amends?” he asked.
“I’ll give you myself,” she said softly.
He answered: “No! no!” and then, wearily, “It’s no good.”
“Well, I did speak like a beast to you,” she said. “But think what a shock it was to me—mother not dead a month, and father not four days, and so suddenly—all that. I’ll tell you how I felt. I felt a loathing for all men. I felt a recoiling from you—a recoiling, a shudder.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, and suddenly he began to plead: “Haven’t you injured me enough? Haven’t I suffered enough? And why?—why? For a mad whim. Isn’t it a mad whim? Or what? I can understand you felt a recoil. But ...”
“Oh, I don’t feel it now,” she said; “you know.”