" Bernard had, in fact, in writing to Angela, scarcely
mentioned his name. "He had not been here for two days," she continued,
at the end of a week; "but last evening, very late--too late for a
visitor--he came in. Mamma had left the drawing-room, and I was sitting
alone; I immediately saw that we had reached a crisis. I thought
at first he was going to tell me that Blanche had carried out his
prediction; but I presently saw that this was not where the shoe
pinched; and, besides, I knew that mamma was watching her too closely.
'How can I have ever been such a dull-souled idiot?' he broke out, as
soon as he had got into the room. 'I like to hear you say that,' I said,
'because it does n't seem to me that you have been at all wise.' 'You
are cleverness, kindness, tact, in the most perfect form!' he went on.
As a veracious historian I am bound to tell you that he paid me a bushel
of compliments, and thanked me in the most flattering terms for my
having let him bore me so for a week. 'You have not bored me,' I
said; 'you have interested me.' 'Yes,' he cried, 'as a curious case of
monomania. It 's a part of your kindness to say that; but I know I have
bored you to death; and the end of it all is that you despise me.
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