"You're unjust," he exclaimed—and he was genuinely distressed. "Not care for you? You don't believe it, you can't believe that. I swear to you——"
"No, don't," she said. "I can imagine all you would say. Haven't I listened to you? Haven't I even ... tried to make illusions for myself? You talk of what you felt for me, not of what you feel. You don't know it, but you rave to me about what I was, not about what I am. You remember the hat and the frock I had on twenty years ago—can you tell me what I wore last night?"
"Is such constancy nothing?" he cried hastily.
"It would be irresistible," she said, "if you could find the girl that you've been constant to. But she doesn't live, Con—she's gone. I am such a different person from the girl you've looked for that—that I've even felt a tiny bit jealous sometimes of your rhapsodies to me about her. Well? I'm being quite frank with you, you see. It's pathetic, I think. There have been moments when I've listened to you and felt a little pained because you seemed to forget all about me.... I am hurting you?"
"You hurt me," said Conrad, "because for the first time I realise you are different from the girl I've looked for. Till now I've felt that I was with her again."
"That's nice of you, but it isn't true. Oh, I like you for saying it, of course.... If you had felt it really——"
"Go on."
"No, what for? I should only make you unhappier."
"You want comedy?" he demurred; "you have said the saddest things a woman ever said to me!"
She raised a white shoulder—with a laugh; "I never get what I want!"