"Why, if you really want to know what I think, Liane: it seems to me that all men in your sight are much the same, good for one thing only, to be used to serve your ends. And who am I that you should hold me in higher rating than any other man?"
"You should know I do," the woman breathed, so low he barely caught the words and uttered an involuntary "Pardon?" before he knew he had understood. So that she iterated in a clearer tone of protest: "You should know I do--that I do esteem you as something more than other men. Think what I owe to you, Michael; and then consider this, that of all men whom I have known you alone have never asked for love."
He gave a quiet laugh. "There is too much humility in my heart."
"No," she said in a dull voice--"but you despise me. Do not deny it!" She shifted impatiently in her chair. "I know what I know. I am no fool, whatever you think of me.... No," she went on with emotion under restraint: "I am a creature of fatality, me--I cannot hope to escape my fate!"
He was silent a little in perplexed consideration of this. What did she wish him to believe?
"But one imagines nobody can escape his fate."
"Men can, some of them; men such as you, rare as you are, know how to cheat destiny; but women never. It is the fate of all women that each shall some time love some man to desperation, and be despised. It is my fate to have learned too late to love you, Michael----"
"Ah, Liane, Liane!"
"But you hold me in too much contempt to be willing to recognise the truth."
"On the contrary, I admire you extremely, I think you are an incomparable actress."