"What!" she said, with a half-smile, "are you going to flatter me, too?"
"No," he answered, grimly, "I am not going to flatter you."
"You would find it a very good way," she answered. "We should get along much better, I assure you. Perhaps that is really what I have been resenting so long—that you show no facility for making amiable speeches."
"I am afraid my facility lies in the opposite direction," he returned.
"I have recovered my equilibrium sufficiently not to admit that," she said.
When he went away, as he did shortly after, she followed him to the door of the room.
"Was I very bad-tempered?" she said, softly. "If I was, suppose you forgive me before you go away—for the sake of the other Bertha."
He took the hand she offered him, and looked down at it as it lay upon his big brown palm. It was feverish and still a little unsteady, though her manner was calm enough.
"There is nothing to forgive," he answered. "If there was—this Bertha"—He checked himself, and ended abruptly. "I don't share your gift," he said. "I said my say as bluntly and offensively as possible, I suppose, and you had a right to be angry. It was all the worse done because I was in earnest."