"I hope you'll tell me."
"That was what I vowed," she said cheerfully. "I vowed to tell you. Could you stand my telling you quite a little?"
In the darkness her voice was warm and kind; and the desolate young man felt the need of kindness just then. He was grateful. "I can stand almost anything, I find," he said. "Especially, I think I could bear a little friendliness."
"You poor thing!" Olivia exclaimed. "I'm afraid the wonderful French lady may have been perplexing lately, perhaps even as perplexing as she seems to an American girl. I'm sure I'd never learn to know what a woman who looks like that was going to do next! But I want to talk, not about her, but about myself, Mr. Ogle, and a little about you. My vow was that if we ever did meet again, I'd tell you the real reason I couldn't help being insulting to you. The first half of it is simple: I was insulting to everybody, I was in a perpetual temper because I was in a fury with my father. I think I don't need to tell you much about that, because I'm sure you've understood it. You didn't need to be a realistic playwright to understand why a girl of my age on a long voyage is in a state of fury with her father! It always means
