“No; but if your seriousness is so much like jest, how is one ever to know which you mean it to be?”
“You must wait for circumstances to enlighten you.”
“How long?”
“That depends upon—circumstances.”
“You are very enigmatical, Lady Gwendolyn, and, as I said before, I am no Œdipus.”
“Then you give me up?” she said, laughing.
“As a riddle, yes. There never was a man yet who could fathom a woman, from Adam downward.”
“It was never intended that you should, evidently, or Eve would not have been allowed to set such a precedent. Weakness is often obliged to seem like duplicity in self-defense.”
“Do you call yourself weak? Physical strength is not the greatest, after all, or Una would never have tamed the lion.”
“If you lapse into allegory, I am undone,” she said gaily. “I am no ‘scholar,’ as the poor people say. What little my governesses managed to teach me I have forgotten long ago.”