“Sometimes it does,” Unorna answered.

“I suppose I have grown awkward and tactless in my lonely life.  You must forgive me if I do not understand my mistake.  But since I have annoyed you, I am sorry for it.  Perhaps you do not like such speeches because you think I am flattering you and turning compliments.  You are wrong if you think that.  I am sincerely attached to you, and I admire you very much.  May I not say as much as that?”

“Does it do any good to say it?”

“If I may speak of you at all I may express myself with pleasant truths.”

“Truths are not always pleasant.  Better not to speak of me at any time.”

“As you will,” answered the Wanderer bending his head as though in submission to her commands.  But he did not continue the conversation, and a long silence ensued.

He wandered what was passing in her mind, and his reflections led to no very definite result.  Even if the idea of her loving him had presented itself to his intelligence he would have scouted it, partly on the ground of its apparent improbability, and partly, perhaps, because he had of late grown really indolent, and would have resented any occurrence which threatened to disturb the peaceful, objectless course of his days.  He put down her quick changes of mood to sudden caprice, which he excused readily enough.

“Why are you so silent?” Unorna asked, after a time.

“I was thinking of you,” he answered, with a smile.  “And since you forbade me to speak of you, I said nothing.”

“How literal you are!” she exclaimed impatiently.

“I could see no figurative application of your words,” he retorted, beginning to be annoyed at her prolonged ill humour.

“Perhaps there was none.”

“In that case—­”

“Oh, do not argue!  I detest argument in all shapes, and most of all when I am expected to answer it.  You cannot understand me—­you never will—­” She broke off suddenly and looked at him.

She was angry with him, with herself, with everything, and in her anger she loved him tenfold better than before.  Had he not been blinded by his own absolute coldness he must have read her heart in the look she gave him, for his eyes met hers.  But he saw nothing.  The glance had been involuntary, but Unorna was too thoroughly a woman not to know all that it had expressed and would have conveyed to the mind of any one not utterly incapable of love, all that it might have betrayed even to this man who was her friend and talked of being her brother.  She realised with terrible vividness the extent of her own passion and the appalling indifference of its objet.  A wave of despair rose and swept over her heart.  Her sight grew dim and she was conscious of sharp physical pain.  She did not even attempt to speak, for she had no thoughts which could take the shape of words.  She leaned back in her chair, and tried to draw her breath, closing her eyes, and wishing she were alone.