"Well, I'm sorry I said such a stupid thing," said Isabel, still very red, "not because of hurting your feelings, for it isn't likely that anything I said would do that—but because it was stupid in itself, and narrow-minded, and snobbish. It'll be a lesson to me. All the same, it's interesting." She had forgotten by now that she was an innocent-young-girl and Lawrence a blase-man-of-the-world, and had slipped into a vein of intimacy which was fast charming Lawrence out of all his caution. "I suppose you take after your father, and that's why you're so unlike Major Clowes. He is a Clowes, but you're a Hyde."
"What does that mean?"
Isabel waited a moment to think it out. "You're more of a cosmopolitan; I expect you have a passion for art too, like your father. Major Clowes hasn't. He doesn't care two pins for the beauty of his old swords and daggers, he cares only for getting all the different sorts. You, perhaps, might care almost too much." Lawrence dropped his eyes. "And you vary more, you're not always the same, you have more facets: one can see you've done all sorts of things and mixed with all sorts of people. I suppose that's why you're so easily bored—I don't mean to be rude!"
"At the present moment I am deeply interested. Go on: it charms me to be dissected to my face, and by such an able hand."
"No: it's absurd and I never meant to begin it. Of course I don't know a bit what you're like."
"God forbid!" Lawrence murmured:—"Guess away and I'll tell you if you're right."
"You won't play fair. You won't own up and you'll get cross if I do."
"Not I, I have the most amiable temper in the world."
"Now I wonder if that's true?" said Isabel, scrutinizing him closely. "Perhaps you wouldn't often take the trouble to get in a wax. Oh well," surrendering at indiscretion, "then I guess that you care for very few people and for those few very much."
"Missed both barrels. I like any number of people and I shouldn't care if I never saw one of them again."