"Ah!" said Billy. "Ah--yes--you think--that." He was very careful in articulating his words, was Billy, and afterward he nodded his head gravely. The universe had somehow suffered an airy dissolution like that of Prospero's masque--Selwoode and its gardens, the great globe itself, "the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples" were all as vanished wraiths. There was only Peggy left-- Peggy with that unimaginable misery in her eyes that he must drive away somehow. If that was what she thought, there was no way for him to prove it wasn't so.
"Why, dear me, Mr. Woods," she retorted, carelessly, "what else could I think?"
"Ah, think what you will, Peggy!" he cried, his big voice cracking and sobbing and resonant with pain. "Ah, my dear, think what you will, but don't grieve for it, Peggy! Why, if I'm all you say I am, that's no reason you should suffer for it! Ah, don't, Peggy! In God's name, don't! I can't bear it, dear," he pleaded with her, helplessly.
Billy was suffering, too. But her sorrow was the chief of his, and what stung him now to impotent anger was that she must suffer and he be unable to help her--for, ah, how willingly, how gladly, he would have borne all poor Peggy's woes upon his own broad shoulders.
But none the less, he had lost an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.
"Suffer! I suffer!" she mocked him, languidly; and then, like a banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry gasp, and her wrath flamed.
"Upon my word, you're the most conceited man I ever knew in my life! You think I'm in love with you! With you! Billy Woods, I wouldn't wipe my feet on you if you were the last man left on earth! I hate you, I loathe you, I detest you, I despise you! Do you hear me?--I hate you. What do I care if you _are_ a snob, and a cad, and a fortune-hunter, and a forger, and--well, I don't care! Perhaps you haven't ever forged anything yet, but I'm quite sure you would if you ever got an opportunity. You'd be delighted to do it. Yes, you would--you're just the sort of man who _revels_ in crime. I love you! Why, that's the best joke I've heard for a long time. I'm only sorry for you, Billy Woods--_sorry_ because Kathleen has thrown you over--sorry, do you understand? Yes, since you're so fond of skinny women, I think it's a great pity she wouldn't have you. Don't talk to me!--she _is_ skinny. I guess I know. She's as skinny as a beanpole. She's skinnier than I ever imagined it possible for anybody--_anybody_--to be. And she pads and rouges till I think it's disgusting, and not half--not _one-half_--of her hair belongs to her, and that half is dyed. But, of course, if you like that sort of thing, there's no accounting for tastes, and I'm sure I'm very sorry for you, even though personally I _don't_ care for skinny women. I hate 'em! And I hate you, too, Billy Woods!"