“No, no,” he protested, when he recovered his speech.
“Do you think I'm after—what you can give me?” she shot at him. “What you can buy for me?”
To tell the truth, he had not thought anything about it, that was the trouble. And her question, instead of enlightening him, only added to his confusion and bewilderment.
“I'm always getting in wrong with you,” he told her, pathetically. “There isn't anything I'd stop at to make you happy, Janet, that's what I'm trying to say. I'd go the limit.”
“Your limit!” she exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. But she had become inarticulate—cryptic, to him. He could get nothing more out of her.
“You don't understand me—you never will!” she cried, and burst into tears—tears of rage she tried in vain to control. The world was black with his ignorance. She hated herself, she hated him. Her sobs shook her convulsively, and she scarcely heard him as he walked beside her along the empty road, pleading and clumsily seeking to comfort her. Once or twice she felt his hand on her shoulders.... And then, unlooked for and unbidden, pity began to invade her. Absurd to pity him! She fought against it, but the thought of Ditmar reduced to abjectness gained ground. After all, he had tried to be generous, he had done his best, he loved her, he needed her—the words rang in her heart. After all, he did not realize how could she expect him to realize? and her imagination conjured up the situation in a new perspective. Her sobs gradually ceased, and presently she stopped in the middle of the road and regarded him. He seemed utterly miserable, like a hurt child whom she longed to comfort. But what she said was:—“I ought to be going home.”
“Not yet!” he begged. “It's early. You say I don't understand you, Janet—my God, I wish I did! It breaks me all up to see you cry like that.”
“I'm sorry,” she said, after a moment. “I—I can't make you understand. I guess I'm not like anybody else I'm queer—I can't help it. You must let me go, I only make you unhappy.”
“Let you go!” he cried—and then in utter self-forgetfulness she yielded her lips to his. A sound penetrated the night, she drew back from his arms and stood silhouetted against the glare of the approaching headlight of a trolley car, and as it came roaring down on them she hailed it. Ditmar seized her arm.