"There is really nothing to tell, "she faltered, hesitatingly--"
that is, nothing happened. I don't know how to say it--the
talk left my mind in a whirl. I couldn't tell you why.
It was no particular thing that was said--it seemed to be
more the things that I thought of while something else was
being talked about--but the whole experience made a most
tremendous impression upon me. I've tried to straighten
it out in my own mind, but I can make nothing of it.
That is what disturbs me, Celia. No man has ever confused me
in this silly fashion before. Nothing could be more idiotic.
I'm supposed to hold my own in conversation with people
of--well, with people of a certain intellectual rank,--but
this man, who is of hardly any intellectual rank at all,
and who rambled on without any special aim that one
could see--he reduced my brain to a sort of porridge.
I said the most extraordinary things to him--babbling
rubbish which a school-girl would be ashamed of.
How is that to be accounted for? I try to reason it out,
but I can't. Can you?"
"Nerves," said Miss Madden, judicially.
"Oh, that is meaningless," the other declared.
"Anybody can say 'nerves.' Of course, all human thought
and action is 'nerves.'"
"But yours is a special case of nerves," Celia pursued,
with gentle imperturbability.
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