"But—why?"
"Well, I've a right to change my mind, haven't I?"
"Of course, but ..."
And so on.... For a long time I could get nothing at all out of him except that he had changed his mind and wasn't going. The cleverest subtleties of cross-examination were wasted on him; whenever I thought I had manœuvred him into a corner, he just shook his head and said: "I don't know what there is to argue about. Severn told me I must please myself.... I'm pleasing myself, that's all." Then, as a last and not too scrupulous resort, I tried a method that had sometimes succeeded before; it consisting in pretending to infer from his silences something that I knew he wouldn't like me to infer. I said: "Well, I daresay you have good reasons, whatever they are. Karelsky seems rather a keen business man, and if the terms he offers aren't high enough——"
"Karelsky," he sharply interrupted, "had nothing to do with it."
"Whether he had or not, you haven't any money of your own, and you obviously can't afford to——"
I guessed that would stir him. He protested with sudden indignation: "I tell you it isn't a matter of money at all. Good heavens! do you think I'd let a question of money interfere with—with anything I had thought of doing?"
"What would you let interfere, then?"
He shook his head. "It's just.... Oh, I can't go—I keep on telling you I can't go.... That's all."
"It isn't me you ought to be telling. It's Severn. He doesn't know yet, does he?"