"That I--hate you!" The professor's voice is cold and shocked.

"Yes. It is true. You need not deny it. You _know_ you hate me."
They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go,
and are, for the moment, virtually alone.

"Who told you that I hated you?" asks the professor in a peremptory
sort of way.

"No," says she, shaking her head, "I shall not tell you that, but I
have heard it all the same."

"One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen."
Curzon's face is a little pale now. "And--I can guess who has been
talking to you."

"Why should I not listen? It is true, is it not?"

She looks up at him. She seems tremulously anxious for the answer.

"You want me to deny it then?"

"Oh no, _no!"_ she throws out one hand with a little gesture of
mingled anger and regret. "Do you think I want you to _lie_ to me?
There I am wrong. After all," with a half smile, sadder than most
sad smiles because of the youth and sweetness of it, "I do not blame
you. I _am_ a trouble, I suppose, and all troubles are hateful.
I"--holding out her hand--"shall take your advice, I think, and go
to bed."