Hugo, supported not merely by his own justifiable confidences but by her mother's affirmations, could, indeed, put no credence in his ears. Many explanations were possible for this extraordinary feminine perversity; she had happened to mention the one explanation that was not possible.
"You don't know what you're saying," he began, huskily, out of the silence. "You're not yourself at all nowadays ... Full of new little ideas. You've taken a whim, because an old rascal ... whom I shall punish as he deserves--"
"No ... That helped me to make up my mind, perhaps. But I've learned I've never loved you--since you left me last year."
Cally moved away from Hugo, not caring to witness the breaking-up of his self-control. She leaned against the heavy mahogany table, clenching a tiny handkerchief between chill little hands. If the months had brought her perfect vengeance on the man who had once failed her in her need, she was finding it, indeed, a joyless victory.
"I'm to blame for not telling you before--when you were here last month," she said, with some agitation ... "Only I really didn't know my own mind ... All summer I seemed to ... just to take it for granted that--everything was the same--that I still cared for you. But--Hugo, I don't. I'm sorrier than I can say for what has been my fault...."
The young man had been standing like one in a trancelike illness, who can hear, indeed, with horrible distinctness, but can neither move nor speak. But now the increasing finality of her words seemed all at once to galvanize him; he shook himself slightly and took one heavy step forward.
"What you need is a protector, little girl--a man. I know about the summer--I suffered, too.... Of course. And in the loneliness--you've let yourself be affected.... The unrest of the day--"
"No, no! Please," said she, almost ready to scream--"don't think this is one of my new little ideas you speak of. I--it's true that we don't seem to think alike about things.... But I'd never have noticed that at all if I loved you. I'd want to think and do only as you wished. But I don't--"
"I've spoiled you ... letting you think you could have your way with me," said Hugo, in his thick and gritty voice. "You're mad to-night, little girl ... aren't responsible for what you say...."
Flicked in her spirit, she broke across his argument with a changed voice and gaze.