Page:Imre.pdf/143

141 my confession through with ever more hostile eyes, with an astonished unsympathy... disgust... curling his lips. Then, he spoke—slowly—pitilessly: "... I have heard that such creatures as you describe yourself are to be found among mankind. I do not know, nor do I care to know, whether they are a sex by themselves, a justified, because helpless, play of Nature; or even a kind of logically essential link, a between-step.... as you seem to have persuaded yourself. Let all that be as it may be. I am not a man of science nor keen to such new notions! From this moment, you and I are strangers! I took you for my friend be cause I believed you to be a... man. Yon chose me for your friend because you believed me.... stay, I will not say that!... because you wished me to be.... a something else, a something more or less like to yourself, what-ever you are! I loathe you!... I loathe you! When I think that I have touched your hand, have sat in the same room with you, have respected you!.. Farewell!...... If I served you as a man should serve such beings as you,