"I don't know what you mean by staying so," replied Mavering, with
gloomy rejection of the comfort offered.

"You'll see that it's all for the best; that you're well out of it. If
she could throw you over, after leading you on--"

"But she didn't lead me on!" exclaimed Mavering. "Don't you understand
that it was all my mistake from the first? If I hadn't been perfectly
besotted I should have seen that she was only tolerating me. Don't you
see? Why, hang it, Boardman, I must have had a kind of consciousness
of it under my thick-skinned conceit, after all, for when I came to the
point--when I did come to the point--I hadn't the sand to stick to it
like a man, and I tried to get her to help me. Yes, I can see that I did
now. I kept fooling about, and fooling about, and it was because I had
that sort of prescience--of whatever you call it--that I was mistaken
about it from the very beginning."

He wished to tell Boardman about the events of the night before; but
he could not. He said to himself that he did not care about their being
hardly to his credit; but he did not choose to let Alice seem to have
resented anything in them; it belittled her, and claimed too much for
him. So Boardman had to proceed upon a partial knowledge of the facts.

"I don't suppose that boomerang way of yours, if that's what you mean,
was of much use," he said.

"Use? It ruined me! But what are you going to do? How are you going to
presuppose that a girl like Miss Pasmer is interested in an idiot like
you? I mean me, of course." Mavering broke off with a dolorous laugh.
"And if you can't presuppose it, what are you going to do when it comes
to the point? You've got to shillyshally, and then you've got to go it
blind. I tell you it's a leap in the dark."

"Well, then, if you've got yourself to blame--"

"How am I to blame, I should like to know?" retorted Mavering, rejecting
the first offer from another of the censure which he had been heaping
upon himself: the irritation of his nerves spoke. "I did speak out at
last--when it was too late. Well, let it all go," he groaned aimlessly.
"I don't care. But she isn't to blame. I don't think I could admire
anybody very much who admired me. No, sir. She did just right. I was a
fool, and she couldn't have treated me differently."

"Oh, I guess it'll come out all right," said Boardman, abandoning
himself to mere optimism.

"How come all right?" demanded Mavering, flattered by the hope he
refused.