But she, not knowing the working of my mind, took no pains to hide or to soften what repelled me in her.

I had seen it before, and yet loved; to her it would seem strange that because a man saw, he should not love.

I found myself sorry for her, with a new and pitiful grief, but passion did not rise in me.
And concerning my pity I held my tongue; she would have only wonder and mockery for it.

But I think she was vexed to see me so unmoved; it irks a woman to lose a man, however little she may have prized him when he was her own.

Nor do I mean to say that we are different from their sex in that; it is, I take it, nature in woman and man alike.
"At least we're friends, Simon," she said with a laugh.