He thinks
he is, because he is full of sorrow and bitterness, and because the news
of our engagement has given him a shock. But that 's only a pretext--a
chance to pour out the grief and pain which have been accumulating in
his heart under a sense of his estrangement from Blanche. He is too
proud to attribute his feelings to that cause, even to himself; but he
wanted to cry out and say he was hurt, to demand justice for a wrong;
and the revelation of the state of things between you and me--which of
course strikes him as incongruous; we must allow largely for that--came
to him as a sudden opportunity. No, no," the girl went on, with a
generous ardor in her face, following further the train of her argument,
which she appeared to find extremely attractive, "I know what you
are going to say and I deny it. I am not fanciful, or sophistical, or
irrational, and I know perfectly what I am about. Men are so stupid; it
's only women that have real discernment. Leave me alone, and I shall do
something. Blanche is silly, yes, very silly; but she is not so bad as
her husband accused her of being, in those dreadful words which he
will live to repent of. She is wise enough to care for him, greatly, at
bottom, and to feel her little heart filled with rage and shame that
he does n't appear to care for her.
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