of amusing me! I cannot imagine, Basil, why I ever liked you!"
"Neither can I," he said readily. "Perhaps you don't."
"No, I don't, I don't like you! It is only another instance of my making a mess of everything. Everything I touch turns wrong. There are some people who are meant to be unhappy in the world, and I am one of them. I've never seen anything clearly in my life except that. It is not meant that I should try to live in the world."
"Perhaps it is not," said Basil slowly.
She lifted her eyes, full of a mystic questioning.
"You think so, too, now, don't you, Basil? You know you have always argued against that feeling of mine, and it was for that, I believe, that I loved you. I was seeking for something to strengthen me against that feeling, and I seemed to find it in you. I believe that's how it was. But you have only shown me how wrong I was in fighting against it. …"
She was silent, and Basil, too. This was the first definite reappearance of her old mood for some months, and Basil felt no energy within himself to combat it. His interest in Isabel had at all times been only a pale reflection of her feeling for him, apart from the impersonal interest which she discouraged, and his relation
