"You mean you want me to reform you!"
He smiled a careful smile.
"No-o. I don't feel the need of reforming. There's nothing the matter with me——"
"How lovely to have such a high opinion of oneself."
"Yes. Isn't it? But as I was saying——"
At another stage she tried to take refuge behind the usual platitude: she did not love him.
He considered this—at ease before her, his hands in his pockets.
"Well, when it comes to that, I don't love you, either"—Ikey gasped—"but I don't consider that that makes any difference."
Another break.
Then, "What'll you do, if you don't?" he had asked her in a businesslike manner. "You're just on the verge of a breakdown"—She knew it; and his tone of conviction did not add to her sense of security—"Another scene like to-day's would upset you completely. You say you have no friends or relatives here; and there's no one you want to go to away from here. And besides, I can look after you a great deal better than you can look after yourself."