“Ah, that shows that you didn't lie awake grieving over your follies all night. I hope you rested well, Miss Pasmer.” She said nothing. “If I thought—if I could hope that you hadn't, it would be a bond of sympathy, and I would give almost anything for a bond of sympathy just now, Miss Pasmer. Alice!” he said, with sudden seriousness. “I know that I'm not worthy even to think of you, and that you're whole worlds above me in every way. It's that that takes all heart out of me, and leaves me without a word to say when I'd like to say so much. I would like to speak—tell you—”
She interrupted him. “I wish to speak to you, Mr. Mavering, and tell you that—I'm very tired, and I'm going back to the hotel. I must ask you to let me go back alone.”
“Alice, I love you.”
“I'm sorry you said it—sorry, sorry.”
“Why?” he asked, with hopeless futility.
“Because there can be no love between us—not friendship even—not acquaintance.”
“I shouldn't have asked for your acquaintance, your friendship, if—” His words conveyed a delicate reproach, and they stung her, because they put her in the wrong.
“No matter,” she began wildly. “I didn't mean to wound you. But we must part, and we must never see each other again:”
He stood confused, as if he could not make it out or believe it. “But yesterday—”
“It's to-day now.”