“I knew he’d be here,” Mary said. “Oh, what’s the use. I knew he was here. He always goes around with the same gang of fellows, and when I saw one of them, Tommy Rice, I knew he was here.”

“He fancies himself,” Rose said angrily.

“You’re right there,” Mary said. “He fancies himself. Oh, yes, he fancies himself. No doubt about that. He fancies himself. More and more he fancies himself. But I knew that.”

(These were the words she said, but her voice, helpless, went on its own way. He is perfect, her voice said. He is perfect. He is perfect. Yes, he is. Perfect.)

“I was great with him once,” she said. “Well, I suppose I can say I was great with him. It was only for a couple of weeks, a little over two weeks, last summer. He thought I was great. I believed him. It must have been a poor sort of greatness that I had, but I didn’t know the difference then. Oh, I don’t care. It’s over and done with. When a person doesn’t want you he doesn’t want you. Oh, I wish I could go away. Even a few miles, but I wish I could go to Dublin.”

“Oh, Mary, I wish there was something I could say to you,” Rose said. “I would like to kill him. He is not good enough for you. It’s awful. Everything is all wrong. You are worth ten of him.”

Mary looked at her as though she might say something, and then she looked as though she had decided not to say what she really wanted to say but to say something else instead. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said. She sat down in the easy chair that stood not far from the dressing table and she put her head back and sighed.

Rose took a step toward her and would have touched her, but she was afraid of making the pain worse. She tried to think of the word that would mean comfort to Mary, but either she could think of no words at all or all the words she thought of were wrong. It was useless. “When a person does not want you, he does not want you.” That is what Mary had said, and Rose knew it for the truth, but how she knew she did not know.