You still have, at times, that far-away, absent expression which excludes me; and when I venture to break the silence, you have a way of answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, child'-- as though you were inattentive, and I had not yet become an adult.

_That_ is my first complaint!.

.

.

_What_ are you laughing at?
It is true; and it confuses and hurts me; because I _know_ I am intelligent enough and old enough to--to be treated as a woman!--a woman attractive enough to be reckoned with! But I never seem to be wholly so to you." The laugh died out as she ended; for a moment they stood there, confronting one another.
"Do you imagine," he said in a low voice, "that I do not know all that ?" "I don't know whether you do.