ce of that."

I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I
none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation
that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much
nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her
nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that,
in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting
to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of
her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating
everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our
eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my
silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to
add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to
recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how
little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of
one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in
the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that,
upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it.
The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I
really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account
of anything I'm in any way obliged to give."

I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give
any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large,
splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least,
treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle.
Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our
occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your
mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a
magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful
and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost
positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as
a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that
must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my
good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity
you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp
dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing
sufficiently what I meant;