I could never understand why Louise

I could never understand why Louise bothered with me . She disliked me and I knew that behind my back , in that gentle way of hers, she seldom lost the opportunity of saying a disagreeable thing about me. She had too much delicacy ever to make a direct statement , but with a hint and a sigh and a little flutter of her beautiful hands she was able to make her meaning plain . She was a mistress of cold praise . It was true that we had known one another almost intimately , for five-and-twenty years , but it was impossible for me to believe that she could be affected by the claims of old association . She thought me a coarse , brutal , cynical , and vulgar fellow . I was puzzled at her not taking the obvious course and dropping me . She did nothing of the kind ; indeed , she would not leave me alone ; she was constantly asking me to lunch and dine with her and once or twice a year invited me to spend a week-end at her house in the country . At last I thought that I had discovered her motive . She had an uneasy suspicion that I did not believe in her ; and if that was why she did not like me , it was also why she sought my acquaintance : it galled her that I alone should look upon her as a comic figure and she could not rest till I acknowledged myself mistaken and defeated . Perhaps she had an inkling that I saw the face behind the mask and because I alone held out was determined that sooner or later I too should take the mask for the face . I was never quite certain that she was a complete humbug . I wondered whether she fooled herself as thoroughly as she fooled the world or whether there was some spark of humour at the bottom of her heart . If there was it might be that she was attracted to me , as a pair of crooks might be attracted to one another , by the knowledge that we shared a secret that was hidden from everybody else .