"You are not looking well," Lorrimer said at last. "I suppose you have been starving yourself since I saw you. You have had no lunch to-day again. You will kill yourself if you go on like that. I was speaking about you to a doctor the other day. He said you could not fast as you do without taking something—stimulants or sedatives." Ideala winced. "What an insulting thing to say," she exclaimed, indignantly. "I will not allow you to adopt that tone with me. You have no right to scold me."
"I have, and shall," he retorted. "I suppose you want to kill yourself.
Perhaps it is the best thing people can do who hate their lives."
"I don't hate my life; I don't want to die," she rejoined.
"The other day you said you loathed your life."
"You are accusing me of inconsistency," she said. "You! who are in two states of mind every time I see you!" She got up. "And I do mean what I say," she resumed. "I loathed the old life, but that is done with. I am living a new life now——"
He turned to look at her, red chasing white from his face at every breath; then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, he went to her, grasped her folded hands in both of his, and looked into her eyes for one burning moment. The hot blood flamed to her face. She was startled.
"Don't let us quarrel," he said, hoarsely.
"Why do you try to?" she retorted. "It is always you who begin."
"I think you want pluck," he said.
"Oh, no; not that," she answered.