"On second thought I'll postpone it."
"Why?"
"The moonlight suggests mystery. Let's leave it a mystery."
"I hate mysteries."
"As I diagnose your case, you're by way of 'hating' most things, nowadays. Come. Confess. Aren't you?"
Katherine nodded mutely.
"Don't do it," advised Dr. Ballard.
"I can't help it," she burst out with quite uncharacteristic impetuosity. "So much in life is hateful. Sometimes, I feel one isn't bound to endure things, when they make one so detestable. I was thinking about it just before you came. Thinking about the sort of thing life can make of one. Everything one oughtn't to be. I hate myself, along with all the rest."
Dr. Ballard sat with his hands clasped around his knees, and gazed straight up above him into the great stretch of dusky sky, spangled over with constellations.
"I wonder what Mrs. Slawson would say to that?" he ruminated.