Her face changed instantly, becoming very serious. Her eyes looked past him out of the window, beginning to be blurred by the gathering tears. He drew back hastily.
"Why do you talk to me like this? What is the use of it all?"
"Why?" he exclaimed fiercely. "Because you are a child; because you try me beyond my patience; because I want to be fair and honorable with you; because I could—"
She was on her feet instantly, clapping her hands together.
"Ah, that's what I want to hear again—again!"
He halted directly, with a helpless gesture.
"Dodo," he said firmly, "listen to me! I will not make another mistake! If you don't realize things, I do. I want to be your friend; I do want to see you; but, unless it can be so, I—"
"Oh!" she cried furiously, dangerously near the point of self-dramatization. "Don't always reason; don't think of what is going to happen! Let's be as we are! I can't help it—can you? You know you can't!"
"And then?"
"Don't talk to me of then! Think of to-day! Do you think, when the first great thing has come into my life, that I'm going to put it aside for—what?" She flung her arm out toward the ugly brick side that symbolized to her all that she hated: "A little ordinary life, like every other ordinary little life? No! I told you I won't be like every one else! It's true! I don't want to live, if that's what life means!"