Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/270

 the least remarkable. As for your thinking ill of me at Baden, I never knew it nor cared about it. If it had been so, you see how I should have got over it. Dear Mr. Wright, we might be such good friends, if you would only believe me. She's so pretty, so charming, so universally admired. You said just now you had bored me, but it's nothing—in spite of all the compliments you have paid me—to the way I have bored you. If she could only know it—that I have bored you! Let her see for half an hour that I am out of your mind—the rest will take care of itself. She might so easily have made a quarrel with me. The way she has behaved to me is one of the prettiest things I have ever seen, and you shall see the way I will always behave to her! Don't think it necessary to say, out of politeness that I have not bored you; it is not in the least necessary. You know perfectly well that you are disappointed in the charm of my society. And I have done my best too. I can honestly affirm that!' For some time he said nothing, and then he remarked that I was very clever, but he didn't see a word of sense in what I said. 'It only proves,' I said, 'that the merit of my conversation is smaller than you had taken it into your head to fancy. But I have done you good, all the same. Don't contradict me; you don't know yet; and it's too late for us to argue about it. You will tell me to-morrow.'" 262