“I don’t know from which side to approach you, Bertha. You frequently complain of my being thoughtless and spoilt. But your uncorked solemnity is far more frivolous than anything I can manage.—Excuse me, of course, for speaking in this way!—Won’t you come down from your pedestal just for a few minutes?” And he “sketched,” in French idiom, a gesture, as though offering her his hand.
“My dear Sorbert, I feel far from being on any pedestal! There’s too little of the pedestal, if anything, about me. Really, Sorbet,” (she leant towards him with an abortive movement as though to take his hand) “I am your friend; believe me!” (Last words very quick, with nod of head and blink of eyes.) “You worry yourself far too much. Don’t do so. You are in no way bound to me. If you think we should part—let us part!”
The “let us part!” was precipitate, strenuous Prussian, almost truculent.
Tarr thought: “Is it cunning, stupidity, disease or what?”
She continued of a sudden, shunting on to another track of generosity:
“But I agree. Let us be franker. We waste too much time talking, talking. You are different to-day, Sorbet. What is it? If you have met somebody else⸺”
“If I had I’d tell you. There is besides nobody else to meet. You are unique!”
“Some one’s been saying something to you⸺”
“No. I’ve been saying something to somebody else. But it’s the same thing.”
With half-incredulous, musing, glimmering stare she drew in her horns.