I could spend a good deal of time just getting used to that fact, but there is something I ought to say and I don't know how.
I inquire after his injuries and learn they are healing nicely.
He says, "Lizzie. Just before my well-meant but ineffective attempt at suicide--"
I say quick If he is worrying about all that nonsense he talked in order to distract my attention, forget it; I have.
Silence, then he says wearily, "I talked nonsense, did I?"
I say there is no need to worry, under the circumstances anyone would have a perfect right to be raving off his Nut.
I then find I cannot bear this conversation any longer so I get up saying I expect he is tired and I will call someone.
"_No_, Lizzie! you can't let that crew loose on me just in order to change the conversation. Come back here. I appreciate your wish to spare my feelings, but it's wasted. We'll have this out here and now.
"I remember quite well what I said, and so do you: I said that I loved you. I also said that I had intended to ask you to marry me as soon as you ceased to be one of my pupils. Well, the results of Finals were officially announced three days ago.
"Oh, I suppose I always knew what the answer would be, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life wondering, because I never had the guts to ask you.
"You don't dislike me as you used to--you've forgiven me for making you come to Russett--but you still think I'm a cold-blooded manipulator of other people's minds and emotions. So I am; it's part of the job.
"You're quite right to distrust me for that, though. It is the danger of this profession, that we end up by looking on everybody and everything as a subject for manipulation. Even in our personal lives. I always knew that: I didn't begin to be afraid of it until I realized I was in love with you.
"I could have made you love me, Lizzie. I could! I didn't try. Not that I didn't want love on those terms, or any terms. But to use professional ... tricks ... in private life, ends by destroying all reality. I always treated you exactly as I treated my other students--I think. But I could have made you think you loved me ... even if I am twice your age--"
This I cannot let pass, I say "Hi! According to College rumor you cannot be more than thirty-six; I'm twenty-three."