Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/300

282 "On the contrary, I couldn't accuse you of not being alive," he protested. "I think, perhaps, that you're rather too much alive. But I can't help feeling it's been a foolish sort of liveliness, like the kind you see in a squirrel-cage."

"Again I thank you!" I solemnly told him. But he refused to be shaken out of his seriousness.

"What I mean is that you've never lived up to your potentialities. You've never given yourself a chance. You've never really risen to your opportunities. You've wasted your time on the small caliber things of life. Instead of conquering, you've merely fretted. Instead of using that restless brain and body Heaven gave you, for one big end, you've let them blow like a leaf in the winds of chance!"

"I don't quite follow you," I coldly affirmed, trying to throw dignity up, like a guard-arm, to ward off the blows that were beginning to hurt.

"I mean that you're too clever a woman, yes, and too fine a woman, to be doing the things you have been doing," he said, still speaking without heat.

"I'm afraid I'm a very stupid woman, or I wouldn't be letting you say the things you are saying to me," I said, meeting his gaze. I was even able to laugh at him, though there wasn't much merriment in that laughter of mine. For there was only too