"All sorts."
"And you hate a good many of them?"
"Some."
"And your friends hate all of them for your sake! I mean Irene, and Miss Muddock, and so on. Ashley, would you do anything really bad for me?"
"I expect so."
"I don't care; I should like it. And when you'd done it I should like to go and tell Alice Muddock all about it."
"She wouldn't care." His voice sounded sincere, not merely as though it gave utterance to the proper formal disclaimer of an unloved lady's interest in him. Ora did not miss the ring of truth.
"Has she begun not to care?" she asked.
"If you choose to put it in that way, yes," he answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. "You see, we go different ways."