answer, but at that point, with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said:

“I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that’s true, because I see it’s unnatural.”

The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life, the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of artificiality, aroused her.

“I am very sorry that nothing but what’s coarse and material is comprehensible and natural to you,” she said and walked out of the room.

When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not referred to the quarrel, but both felt that the quarrel had been smoothed over, but was not at an end.