“How you must hate me!” she murmured.

“No, I do not hate you,” he replied, “but, on the other hand, you have certainly been a trouble to me.  First of all, I told a falsehood at the boarding-house, and I prefer always to tell the truth when I can.  Then I followed you out of the house, which I disliked doing very much, and I seem to have spent a considerable portion of the time since, in your company, under somewhat extraordinary circumstances.  I do not understand why I have done this.”

“I suppose it is because you are a very good-hearted person,” she remarked.

“But I am not,” he assured her, calmly.  “I am nothing of the sort.  I have very little sympathy with good-hearted people.  I think the world goes very much better when every one looks after himself, and the people who are not competent to do so go to the wall.”

“It sounds a trifle selfish,” she murmured.

“Perhaps it is.  I have an idea that if I could phrase it differently it would become philosophy.”

“Perhaps,” she suggested, smiling across the table at him, “you have really done all this because you like me.”

“I am quite sure that it is not that,” he declared.  “I feel an interest in you for which I cannot account, but it does not seem to me to be a personal one.  Last night,” he continued, “when I was sitting there waiting, I tried to puzzle it all out.  I came to the conclusion that it was because you represent something which I do not understand.  I am very curious and it always interests me to learn.  I believe that must be the secret of my interest in you.”

“You are very complimentary,” she told him, mockingly.  “I wonder what there is in the world which I could teach so superior a person as Mr. Tavernake?”

He took her question quite seriously.

“I wonder what there is myself,” he answered.  “And yet, in a way, I think I know.”

“Your imagination should come to the rescue,” she remarked.

“I have no imagination,” he declared, gloomily.

They were silent for several minutes; she was still studying him.

“I wonder you don’t ask me any questions about myself,” she said, abruptly.

“There is only one thing,” he answered, “concerning which I am in the least curious.  Last night in the chemist’s shop—­”

“Don’t!” she begged him, with suddenly whitening face.  “Don’t speak of that!”

“Very well,” he replied, indifferently.  “I thought that you were rather inviting my questions.  You need not be afraid of any more.  I really am not curious about personal matters; I find that my own life absorbs all my interests.”

They had finished breakfast and he paid the bill.  She began to put on her gloves.

“Whatever happens to me,” she said, “I shall never forget that you have been very kind.”

She hesitated for a moment and then she seemed to realize more completely how really kind he had been.  There had been a certain crude delicacy about his actions which she had under-appreciated.  She leaned towards him.  There was nothing left this morning of that disfiguring sullenness.  Her mouth was soft; her eyes were bright, almost appealing.  If Tavernake had been a judge of woman’s looks, he must certainly have found her attractive.