“I am not a little girl,” indignantly.

“Certainly you are not a big one,” says he.  It is an untimely remark.  Miss Wynter’s hitherto ill-subdued anger now bursts into flame.

“I can’t help it if I’m not big,” cries she.  “It isn’t my fault.  I can’t help it either that papa sent me to you. I didn’t want to go to you.  It wasn’t my fault that I was thrown upon your hands.  And—­and”—­her voice begins to tremble—­“it isn’t my fault either that you hate me.”

“That I—­hate you!” The professor’s voice is cold and shocked.

“Yes.  It is true.  You need not deny it.  You know you hate me.”  They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go, and are, for the moment, virtually alone.

“Who told you that I hated you?” asks the professor in a peremptory sort of way.

“No,” says she, shaking her head, “I shall not tell you that, but I have heard it all the same.”

“One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen.”  Curzon’s face is a little pale now.  “And—­I can guess who has been talking to you.”

“Why should I not listen?  It is true, is it not?”

She looks up at him.  She seems tremulously anxious for the answer.

“You want me to deny it then?”

“Oh no, no!" she throws out one hand with a little gesture of mingled anger and regret.  “Do you think I want you to lie to me?  There I am wrong.  After all,” with a half smile, sadder than most sad smiles because of the youth and sweetness of it, “I do not blame you.  I am a trouble, I suppose, and all troubles are hateful.  I”—­holding out her hand—­“shall take your advice, I think, and go to bed.”

“It was bad advice,” says Curzon, taking the hand and holding it.  “Stay up, enjoy yourself, dance——­”

“Oh!  I am not dancing,” says she as if offended.

“Why not?” eagerly.  “Better dance than sleep at your age.  You—­you mistook me.  Why go so soon?”

She looks at him with a little whimsical expression.

“I shall not know you at all, presently,” says she.  “Your very appearance to-night is strange to me, and now your sentiments!  No, I shall not be swayed by you.  Good-night, good-bye!” She smiles at him in the same sorrowful little way, and takes a step or two forward.

“Perpetua,” says the professor sternly, “before you go, you must listen to me.  You said just now you would not hear me lie to you—­you shall hear only the truth.  Whoever told you that I hated you is the most unmitigated liar on record!”

Perpetua rubs her fan up and down against her cheek for a little bit.

“Well—­I’m glad you don’t hate me,” says she, “but still I’m a worry.  Never mind,”—­sighing—­“I daresay I shan’t be so for long.”

“You mean?” asks the professor anxiously.

“Nothing—­nothing at all.  Good-night.  Good-night indeed."