Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/421

Rh This time her manner was convincing. She admitted, "Yes."

Melville was carefully impartial. "He's sightly," he admitted, "and well-built and a decent chap—a decent chap. But I don't see why you"

He went off at a tangent. "He didn't see you?"

"Oh, no."

Melville's pose and tone suggested a mind of extreme liberality. "I don't see why you came," he said. "Nor what you mean to do. You see"—with an air of noting a trifling but valid obstacle—"there's Miss Glendower."

"Is there?" she said.

"Well, isn't there?"

"That's just it," she said.

"And besides after all, you know, why should you?"

"I admit it's unreasonable," she said. "But why reason about it? It's a matter of the imagination"

"For him?"

"How should I know how it takes him? That is what I want to know."

Melville looked her in the eyes again. "You know, you're not playing fair," he said.

"To her?"

"To any one."

"Why?"

"Because you are immortal—and unencumbered. Because you can do everything you want to do—and we cannot. I don't know why we cannot, but we