ewhat isolated.

"Take me into the most out-of-the-way corner you can find," she then
said, "and then go and get me a piece of bread."

"Nothing more? There seems to be everything conceivable."

"A simple roll. Nothing more, on your peril. Only bring something for
yourself."

It seemed to Rowland that the embrasure of a window (embrasures in Roman
palaces are deep) was a retreat sufficiently obscure for Miss Light to
execute whatever design she might have contrived against his equanimity.
A roll, after he had found her a seat, was easily procured. As he
presented it, he remarked that, frankly speaking, he was at loss to
understand why she should have selected for the honor of a tete-a-tete
an individual for whom she had so little taste.

"Ah yes, I dislike you," said Christina. "To tell the truth, I had
forgotten it. There are so many people here whom I dislike more, that
when I espied you just now, you seemed like an intimate friend. But I
have not come into this corner to talk nonsense," she went on. "You must
not think I always do, eh?"

"I have never heard you do anything else," said Rowland, deliberately,
having decided that he owed her no compliments.

"Very good. I like your frankness. It 's quite true. You see, I am a
strange girl. To begin with, I am frightfully egotistical. Don't flatter
yourself you have said anything very clever if you ever take it into
your head to tell me so. I know it much better than you. So it is, I
can't help it. I am tired to death of myself; I would give all I possess
to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly
more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet. If a person
wished to do me a favor I would say to him, 'I beg you, with tears in my
eyes, to interest me. Be strong, be positive, be imperious, if you
will; only be something,--something that, in looking at, I can forget my
detestable self!' Perhaps that is nonsense too. If it is, I can't help
it. I can only apologize for the nonsense I know to be such and that I
talk--oh, for more reasons than I can tell you! I wonder whether, if I
were to try, you would understand me."

"I am afraid I should never understand," said Rowland, "why a person
should willingly talk nonsense."

"That proves how little you know about women. But I like your frankness.
When I told you the other day that you displeased me, I had an idea
you were more formal,--how do you say it?--more guinde. I am very
caprici