You know less about human nature than anybody I have met." Hollanden looked at her in artless astonishment.

He said, "Now, I wonder what made you say that ?" This interrogation did not seem to be addressed to her, but was evidently a statement to himself of a problem.

He meditated for some moments.

Eventually he said, "I suppose you mean that I do not understand you ?" "Why do you suppose I mean that ?" "That's what a person usually means when he--or she--charges another with not understanding the entire world." "Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean at all," she said.

"I mean that you habitually blunder about other people's affairs, in the belief, I imagine, that you are a great philanthropist, when you are only making an extraordinary exhibition of yourself." "The dev----" began Hollanden.