Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/463

Rh "What is she?" she changed abruptly. "What is this being who has come between him and all the realities of life? What is there about her—? And why should I have to compete with her, because he—because he doesn't know his own mind?"

"For a man," said Melville, "to know his own mind is—to have exhausted one of the chief interests in life. After that—! A cultivated extinct volcano—if ever it was a volcano."

He reflected egotistically for a space. Then with a secret start he came back to consider her.

"What is there," she said, with that deliberate attempt at clearness which was one of her antipathetic qualities for Melville—"what is there that she has, that she offers, that I?"

Melville winced at this deliberate proposal of appalling comparisons. All the catlike quality in his soul came to his aid. He began to edge away, and walk obliquely and generally to shirk the issue. "My dear Miss Glendower," he said, and tried to make that seem an adequate reply.

"What is the difference?" she insisted.

"There are impalpable things," waived Melville. "They are above reason and beyond describing."

"But you," she urged, "you take an attitude, you must have an impression. Why don't you— Don't you see, Mr. Melville, this is very"—her voice caught for a moment—"very vital for me. It isn't kind of you, if you have impressions— I'm sorry, Mr. Melville, if I seem to be trying to get too much from you. I—I want to know."

It came into Melville's head for a moment that this