Fanny [as before]. Don't speak to me like that, Hindes. Be my good friend, as you always were. [In a lower tone, embarrassed.] And be good to Berman. For you know, between us, between you and me, there could never have been anything more than friendship.
Hindes. There is no need of your telling me that. I know what I know and have no fault to find with you.
Fanny. Then why are you so upset, and why do you reproach yourself?
Hindes. Because....
Fanny. Because what?
Hindes [after an inner struggle, stormily]. Because I am in a rage! To think of a chap writing such a veiled, ambiguous, absolutely botched sentence, and cooking up such a mess!
Fanny. What do you mean by all this?
Hindes. You know, Miss Segal, what my feelings are toward you, and you know that I wish you all happiness. I assure you that I would bury deep within me all my grief and all my longing, and would rejoice with a full heart—if things were as you understood them from Berman's letter.
Fanny. As I understood them from Berman's letter?
Hindes. —And what rouses my anger and makes me hesitate is that it should have had to happen to you and that I must be the surgeon to cut the cataract from your eye.