ing person would know.
I'm _not_ a self-respecting person." Her wandering gaze seems to fall
for the first time upon the tray with the cocktails and glasses and
cigarettes; she flies at the bell-button and presses it impetuously.
As the maid appears: "Take these things away, Nora, please!" To Ashley
when the maid has left the room: "Don't be afraid to say what you
think of me!"

_Ashley_: "I think all the world of you. But I should merely like to
ask--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!"

_Ashley_, with palpable insincerity: "I should like to ask why you
don't respect yourself?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Was that what you were going to ask? I know it wasn't.
But I will tell you. Because I have been a fool."

_Ashley_: "Thank you. Now I will tell you what I was really going to
ask. Why did you wish to drive me back to Miss Fray when you knew that
I would be false to her a thousand times if I could only once be true
to you?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just the
point. You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Ashley, and everybody says
you are--very able, and talented, and all that, but you can't get
round that point. You may torture any meaning you please out of my
words, but I shall always say you brought it on yourself."

_Ashley_: "Brought what on?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won't be cross-questioned."

_Ashley_: "Was that why you smoked, and poured cocktails out of an
unopened bottle? Was it because you wished me to hate you, and
remember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a dead
failure. It made me love you more than ever. I am a fool too, as you
call it."

_Miss Ramsey_: "Say anything you please. I have given you the right. I
shall not resent it. Go on."

_Ashley_: "I should only repeat myself. You must have known how much I
care for you, Isobel. Do you mind my calling you Isobel?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Not in the least if you wish to humiliate me by it. I
should like you to trample on me in every way you can."

_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by a
steam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings,
dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I have told you that you can say anything you like. I
deserve it. But oh, if you have a spark of pity--"

_Ashley_: "I'm a perfect conflagration of compassion, darling. Do you
object to darling?"

_Miss Ramsey_, with starting tears: "It doesn't matter now." She