"At any rate," he said in an angry voice, "I have some comprehension and sympathy for the feelings of others."
"Have you?" she asked. "How do you mean, Hollie? Do you mean you have feeling for them in their various sorrows? Or do you mean that you understand their minds?"
Hollanden ponderously began, "There have been people who have not questioned my ability to——"
"Oh, then, you mean that you both feel for them in their sorrows and comprehend the machinery of their minds. Well, let me tell you that in regard to the last thing you are wrong. You know nothing of anyone's mind. You know less about human nature than anybody I have met."
Hollanden looked at her in artless astonishment. He said, "Now, I wonder what made you say that?" This interrogation did not seem to be addressed to her, but was evidently a statement to himself of a problem. He meditated for some moments. Eventually he said, "I suppose you mean that I do not understand you?"
"Why do you suppose I mean that?"
"That's what a person usually means when he—or she—charges another with not understanding the entire world."
"Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean at all," she said. "I mean that you habitually blunder about other people's affairs, in the belief, I imagine, that you are a great philanthropist, when you are only making an extraordinary exhibition of yourself."
"The dev——" began Hollanden. Afterward he said, "Now, I wonder what in blue thunder you mean this time?"
"Mean this time? My meaning is very plain, Hollie. I supposed the words were clear enough."