"No, you needn't."
"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is vexing you. Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but kindness."
"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate kindness: it's an insult."
He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said.
"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see it. But you don't see and you don't feel, or you would never have tried to make any one care for you for whom you did not care a bit. But I won't care for you, and I don't."
Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was standing away from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming through tears: Mary Stuart herself could not have been more effective.
"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he could hardly control. "I have cared for you as I never cared for a thing on earth: I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being."
"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say it without making me ashamed of myself?"
"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you."
"Annoy!"