"Oh, don't say that again! You think it's easy for me to lie here and be looked after by people who despise me and hate me...."
I got up and lifted the tray from her bed.
"I'm going to leave you now," I said. "Sleeping's much better for you than talking, and I'm afraid I've got rather a faculty for getting on your nerves."
Her lower lip at once fell and trembled with nervous contrition.
"I didn't mean to be rude, but I do feel so ill! And you do all hate me! To bring me here!"
She gave a single breathless sob, and tears began to well into her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. I pulled a chair to the bedside and took her hand.
"The older I get," I said, "the greater disparity I find between the theory and practice of hating. Theoretically I hate no end of a lot of people, but, if I had the power of venting my hatred on them, I don't see myself using it much. As a matter of fact, I had a talk with George the other night about you; I said that the madcap life here was fantastically impossible, that your husband had himself to blame more than any other man for driving you out of the house——"
"That wasn't why I left him," she interrupted quickly.
"You didn't leave him because you thought he was unfaithful to you."
"I know he was. I had proofs."