"Poor boy!" she exclaimed, impulsively taking his hand. "I'm the most heartless creature in the whole world. Do you know, Frank, though I look so nice and girlish, I am really a brute; and when I die I am sure to go to hell."
"I hope not," he said, smiling.
"Oh, but I know!" she cried. "All I ever do is to make people miserable."
"Perhaps it's the people's fault, for—for loving you, Florence," he said.
"It's awfully exciting to see you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's queer, isn't it? Thrilling!"
"Why do you bring all that up, Florence?" he said. "It's done.
It's over. I—I would rather not speak of it."
"But it was such an awfully near thing, Frank," she persisted. "I had made up my mind to take you, you know. I had even looked over my poor little clothes and had drawn a hundred dollars out of the savings bank!"
"You don't take much account of a hundred dollars now," he returned, trying to smile.
"I know you don't want to talk about it," she said, "but I do. I love to play with emotions. I suppose it's a habit, like any other," she continued, "and it grows on one like opium or morphine. That's why I'll go to hell, Frank. It wasn't that way at all when you used to know me. I think I must have been nice then, and really worth loving!"
"Oh, yes!" he returned miserably. "Oh, yes!"