can I believe that
any words of mine can affect your happiness, unless they be those you
need for the experiment itself. Those, at least, I have not refused to
pronounce."

While she was speaking, Keyork began to walk up and down the room, in
evident agitation, twisting his fingers and bending down his head.

"My accursed folly!" he exclaimed, as though speaking to himself. "My
damnable ingenuity in being odious! It is not to be believed! That a man
of my age should think one thing and say another--like a tetchy girl
or a spoilt child! The stupidity of the thing! And then, to have the
idiotic utterances of the tongue registered and judged as a confession
of faith--or rather, of faithlessness! But it is only just--it is only
right--Keyork Arabian's self is ruined again by Keyork Arabian's vile
speeches, which have no more to do with his self than the clouds on
earth have with the sun above them! Ruined, ruined--lost, this time. Cut
off from the only living being he respects--the only being whose
respect he covets; sent back to die in his loneliness, to perish like
a friendless beast, as he is, to the funereal music of his own
irrepressible snarling! To growl himself out of the world, like a
broken-down old tiger in the jungle, after scaring away all possible
peace and happiness and help with his senseless growls! Ugh! It is
perfectly just, it is absolutely right and supremely horrible to think
of! A fool to the last, Keyork, as you always were--and who would make a
friend of such a fool?"

Unorna leaned upon the back of the chair watching him, and wondering
whether, after all, he were not in earnest this time. He jerked out his
sentences excitedly, striking his hands together and then swinging
his arms in strange gestures. His tone, as he gave utterance to his
incoherent self-condemnation, was full of sincere conviction and of
anger against himself. He seemed not to see Unorna, nor to notice her
presence in the room. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at her and came
towards her. His manner became very humble.

"You are right, my dear lady," he said. "I have no claim to your
forbearance for my outrageous humours. I have offended you, insulted
you, spoken to you as no man should speak to any woman. I cannot even
ask you to forgive me, and, if I tell you that I am sorry, you will not
believe me. Why should you? But you are right. This cannot go on. Rather
than run the risk of again showing you my abominable temper, I will g