_Ashley_: "Let _me_." He follows her to the window, where he stands beside her.

_Miss Ramsey_: "Now, she"s seen me! And you here with me. Of course--"

_Ashley_: "I shouldn"t mind. But I"m so sorry if--and I will go."

_Miss Ramsey_: "You can"t go now--till she"s round the corner. She"ll keep looking back, and she"ll think I made you."

_Ashley_: "But haven"t you? Aren"t you sending me back to Miss Fray to tell her that I must keep my engagement, though I care nothing for her, and care all the world for you? Isn"t that what you want me to do?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "But you"re not engaged to her! You just--"

_Ashley_: "Just what?"

_Miss Ramsey_, desperately: "You wish me to disgrace myself forever in your eyes. Well, I will; what does it matter now? I heard you telling Esther you were not engaged. I _overheard_ you."

_Ashley_: "I fancied you must."

_Miss Ramsey_: "I _tried_ to overhear! I _eavesdropped_! I wish you to know that."

_Ashley_: "And what do you wish me to do about it?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I should think any self-respecting person would know.

I"m _not_ a self-respecting person." Her wandering gaze seems to fall for the first time upon the tray with the c.o.c.ktails and gla.s.ses and cigarettes; she flies at the bell-b.u.t.ton and presses it impetuously.

As the maid appears: "Take these things away, Nora, please!" To Ashley when the maid has left the room: "Don"t be afraid to say what you think of me!"

_Ashley_: "I think all the world of you. But I should merely like to ask--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!"

_Ashley_, with palpable insincerity: "I should like to ask why you don"t respect yourself?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Was that what you were going to ask? I know it wasn"t.

But I will tell you. Because I have been a fool."

_Ashley_: "Thank you. Now I will tell you what I was really going to ask. Why did you wish to drive me back to Miss Fray when you knew that I would be false to her a thousand times if I could only once be true to you?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just the point. You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Ashley, and everybody says you are--very able, and talented, and all that, but you can"t get round that point. You may torture any meaning you please out of my words, but I shall always say you brought it on yourself."

_Ashley_: "Brought what on?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won"t be cross-questioned."

_Ashley_: "Was that why you smoked, and poured c.o.c.ktails out of an unopened bottle? Was it because you wished me to hate you, and remember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a dead failure. It made me love you more than ever. I am a fool too, as you call it."

_Miss Ramsey_: "Say anything you please. I have given you the right. I shall not resent it. Go on."

_Ashley_: "I should only repeat myself. You must have known how much I care for you, Isobel. Do you mind my calling you Isobel?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Not in the least if you wish to humiliate me by it. I should like you to trample on me in every way you can."

_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by a steam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings, dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I have told you that you can say anything you like. I deserve it. But oh, if you have a spark of pity--"

_Ashley_: "I"m a perfect conflagration of compa.s.sion, darling. Do you object to darling?"

_Miss Ramsey_, with starting tears: "It doesn"t matter now." She has let her lovely length trail into the corner of the sofa, where she desperately reclines, supporting her elbow on the arm of it, and resting her drooping head on her hand. He draws a ha.s.sock up in front of her, and sits on it.

_Ashley_: "This represents kneeling at your feet. One doesn"t do it literally any more, you know."

_Miss Ramsey_, in a hollow voice: "I should despise you if you did, and"--deeply murmurous--"I don"t _wish_ to despise you."

_Ashley_: "No, I understand that. You merely wish _me_ to despise _you_. But why?"

_Miss Ramsey_, nervously: "You know."

_Ashley_: "But I don"t know--Isobel, dearest, darling, if you will allow me to express myself so fully. _How_ should I know?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I"ve told you."

_Ashley_: "May I take your hand? For good-by!" He possesses himself of it. "It seems to go along with those expressions."

_Miss Ramsey_, self-contemptuously: "Oh yes."

_Ashley_: "Thank you. Where were we?"

_Miss Ramsey_, sitting up and recovering her hand: "You were saying good-by--"

_Ashley_: "Was I? But not before I had told you that I knew you were doing all that for my best good, and I wish--I _wish_ you could have seen how exemplary you looked when you were trying to pour a c.o.c.ktail out of a corked bottle, between your remarks on pa.s.sionate fiction and puffs of the insidious cigarette! When the venomous tobacco began to get in its deadly work, and you turned pale and reeled a little, and called for air, it made me mentally vow to go back to Miss Fray instantly, whether I was engaged to her or not, and cut out poor old Brooks--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Was it Mr. Brooks? I didn"t hear the name exactly."

_Ashley_: "When I was telling Miss Garnett? I ought to have spoken louder, but I wasn"t sure at the time you were listening. Though as you were saying, what does it matter now?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?"

_Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel how unworthy of you I am. I"m not heroic--by nature. But I could be, if you made me--by art--"

_Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you are ridiculing me--you are making fun of me."

_Ashley_, gathering himself up from his ha.s.sock with difficulty, and confronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun of you? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur you overtop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I was with you."

_Miss Ramsey_, thoughtfully: "Plenty of girls are that way, now. But if you are ashamed of my being tall--" Flashingly, and with starting tears.

_Ashley_: "Ashamed! I can always look up to you, you can always stoop to me!" He stretches his arms toward her.

_Miss Ramsey_, recoiling bewildered: "Wait! We haven"t got to that yet."

_Ashley_: "Oh, Isobel--dearest--darling! We"ve got past it! We"re on the home stretch, now."