"Lawrence, what is the matter with you?" she asked, pleadingly, with tears in her voice.
He felt the emotion in her words, and was suddenly contrite. If he had known it, he was acting like the sentimentalists whom he ridiculed, but he suffered from the egotist's fate, he did not recognize his own failing.
"I don't know that there is anything the matter, Claire. It angered me to think that you still imagine that because I am blind I need a guardian," he said, dropping into a chair.
She came over toward him, impulsively.
"That isn't the idea at all," she said, still very worried. "It was simply that you told me yourself that you were helpless in the snow."
"I didn't ask to be cared for," he snapped.
"I wasn't caring for you—nor about you," she retorted, in sudden irritation. "I didn't want you to be lost, that's all."
"I should think you'd be glad to see me gone." He was a little ashamed of his own words, but he did not try to remedy the speech.
"What do you mean?"
He smiled ironically. "Even a blind man sometimes sees too much of lovers."