She shook her head sorrowfully.
"You do not know him!" she said—"But—HE knows!"
"Knows what?"
She gave a despairing little gesture.
"That I love him!"
"Ah! That's a pity!" said Gwent—"Men are curious monsters in their love-appetites; they always refuse the offered dish and ask for something that isn't in the bill of fare. You should have pretended to hate him!"
"I could not pretend THAT!" said Manella, sadly—"But if I could, it would not matter. He does not want a woman."
"Oh, doesn't he?" Gwent was amused at her quaint way of putting it. "Well, he's the first man I ever heard of, that didn't! That's all bunkum, my good girl! Probably he's crying for the moon!"
"What is that?" she asked, wistfully.
"Crying for the moon? Just hankering after what can't be got. Lots of men are afflicted that way. But they've been known to give up crying and content themselves with something else."