"Make decent friends. I'm going to."
He bent forward and struck his knee with his closed fist.
"I'm going to," he repeated. "I've waited as long as I can for you to stand by me. I could have even remained among these harmless simians if you had cared for me. You're all the friend I need. But you've become one of them. It isn't in you to take an intelligent interest in me, or in what I care for. I've stood this sort of existence long enough. Now I'm all through with it."
She stared. Anger, astonishment, exasperation moved her in turn. Bitterness unlocked her lips.
"Are you expecting to take Mrs. Dysart with you to your intellectual solitude?"
"I would if I—if we cared for each other," he said, calmly seating himself.
She said, revolted: "Can't you even admit that you are in love with her? Must I confess that I could not avoid seeing you with her in her own room—half an hour since? Will that wring the truth out of you?"
"Oh, is that what you mean?" he said wearily. "I believe the door was open.... Well, Geraldine, whatever you saw won't harm anybody. So come to your own conclusions.... But I wish you were out of all this—with your fine insight and your clear intelligence, and your sweetness—oh, the chances for happiness you and I might have had!"
"A slim chance with you!" she said.
"Every chance; perhaps the only chance we'll ever have. And we've missed it."