Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/165

Rh "That's all very well, but I wish I didn't care. Sometimes I wish you hadn't told me things. Scenes come up to me—pictures—all sorts of things. Then I hate you."

"Oh, I forget sometimes that you're a woman," said Basil, with a humorous sigh. "I talk to you as I would to a man. And you like it."

"Oh, I like it well enough. But—perhaps it isn't so awfully clever of you."

"Why not? Why? What do you mean?"

She smiled and wouldn't answer. When he pressed her to speak, she shook her head enigmatically. Basil took her by the throat and threatened to choke her if she didn't explain; whereat she laughed, and said gaily:

"Never mind. We're good friends, anyway. I think we always shall be, and like each other best of all. It doesn't matter if we amuse our- selves a little by the way. There—that's the point of view I'm striving to reach."

"You are? Well, I thought you'd always had that point of view."

"In a purely abstract way, but I want to feel it—I want to put it into practice. I hate mere theories."

"That's all right—but a good many theories ain't practicable," said Basil, after a pause. "There's a difference, you know."

"A difference where?"

"Between you and me, for example."