"You could forget it easier in California."
"I should forget too much."
"It's awful to think of you not comin' back, though I understand well enough. Europe suits you all right. But … but…."
He rose abruptly almost overturning his fragile chair.
"Good-by, and as I guess it is good-by I'll tell you something I wouldn't if there was any chance of my seein' you like I used to. It's this: If I'm more of a socialist than ever it's because of you! If my class hatred's blacker than ever you're the cause! You'd have made me a socialist if I wasn't one before. Jesus Christ! When I think what I might have had if we'd all been born alike! Had the same chances! If you hadn't been born at the top and I down at the bottom … common … not even educated except by myself after I was too old to get what a boy gets that goes to school long enough. I wouldn't mind bein' born ugly. There's plenty of men at the top that's ugly enough, God knows. But just one generation with money irons out the commonness. That's it! I'm common! Common! Common. Democracy! Oh, God!"
He caught up his cap and rushed out of the room,
Alexina ran after him and caught him at the garden door. Like all beautiful women who have listened to many declarations of love (or avoided them) she was inclined to be cruel to men that roused no response in her. But she felt only pity for Kirkpatrick.
She had intended merely to insist upon shaking hands with him, but when she saw his contorted face she slipped her arm round his neck and kissed him warmly on the cheek.
Then she pushed him gently through the door and locked it.