“That is true, indeed,” said Unorna in a low voice.

“And what he says might be true also, if I were capable of loving.  But I feel that I am not.  I am as incapable of that as of anything else.  I ought to despise myself, and yet I do not.  I am perfectly contented, and if I am not happy I at least do not realise what unhappiness means.  Am I not always of the same even temper?”

“Indeed you are.”  She tried not to speak bitterly, but something in her tone struck him.

“Ah, I see!  You despise me a little for my apathy.  Yes, you are quite right.  Man is not made to turn idleness into a fine art, nor to manufacture contentment out of his own culpable indifference!  It is despicable—­and yet, here I am.”

“I never meant that,” cried Unorna with sudden heat.  “Even if I had, what right have I to make myself the judge of your life?”

“The right of friendship,” answered the Wanderer very quietly.  “You are my best friend, Unorna.”

Unorna’s anger rose within her.  She remembered how in that very place, and but a month earlier, she had offered Israel Kafka her friendship, and it was as though a heavy retribution were now meted out to her for her cruelty on that day.  She remembered his wrath and his passionate denunciations of friendship, his scornful refusal, his savage attempt to conquer her will, his failure and his defeat.  She remembered how she had taken her revenge, delivering him over in his sleep to Keyork Arabian’s will.  She wished that, like him, she could escape from the wound of the word in a senseless lethargy of body and mind.  She knew now what he had suffered, for she suffered it all herself.  He, at least, had been free to speak his mind, to rage and storm and struggle.  She must sit still and hide her agony, at the risk of losing all.  She bit her white lips and turned her head away, and was silent.

“You are my best friend,” the Wanderer repeated in his calm voice, and every syllable pierced her like a glowing needle.  “And does not friendship give rights which ought to be used?  If, as I think, Unorna, you look upon me as an idler, as a worthless being, as a man without as much as the shadow of a purpose in the world, it is but natural that you should despise me a little, even though you may be very fond of me.  Do you not see that?”

Unorna stared at him with an odd expression for a moment.

“Yes—­I am fond of you!” she exclaimed, almost harshly.  Then she laughed.  He seemed not to notice her tone.

“I never knew what friendship was before,” he went on.  “Of course, as I said, I had friends when I was little more than a boy, boys and young men like myself, and our friendship came to this, that we laughed, and feasted and hunted together, and sometimes even quarrelled, and caring little, thought even less.  But in those days there seemed to be nothing between that and love, and love I never understood, that I can remember.  But friendship like ours, Unorna, was never dreamed of among us.  Such friendship as this, when I often think that I receive all and give nothing in return.”