Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/272

260 "But how?"

"I suppose you think it doesn't concern me? I suppose you think I'm made of stone."

"You mean—you think—?"

"Yes—I do."

For a brief interval Lewisham stared at the issue she had laid bare. He sought some crushing proposition, some line of convincing reasoning, with which to overwhelm and hide this new aspect of things. It would not come. He found himself fenced in on every side. A surging, irrational rage seized upon him.

"Jealousy!" he cried. "Jealousy! Just as though— Can't I have letters about things you don't understand—that you won't understand? If I asked you to read them you wouldn't—It's just because—"

"You never give me a chance to understand."

"Don't I?"

"No!"

"Why!—At first I was always trying. Socialism, religion—all those things. But you don't care—you won't care. You won't have that I've thought over these things at all, that I care for these things! It wasn't any good to argue. You just care for me in a way—and all the rest of me—doesn't matter! And because I've got a friend "

"Friend!"