‘There is no question of shooting at all. I think you are very angry for nothing.’
‘Angry for nothing! Do you call that studied coldness you have observed towards me all day yesterday nothing? Is your ceremonious manner—exquisitely polite, I will not deny—is that nothing? Is your chilling salute when we met—I half believe you curtsied—nothing? That you shun me, that you take pains not to keep my company, never to be with me alone is past denial.’
‘And I do not deny it,’ said Kate, with a voice of calm and quiet meaning.
‘At last, then, I have the avowal. You own that you love me no longer.’
‘No, I own nothing of the kind: I love you very dearly; but I see that our ideas of life are so totally unlike, that unless one should bend and conform to the other, we cannot blend our thoughts in that harmony which perfect confidence requires. You are so much above me in many things, so much more cultivated and gifted—I was going to say civilised, and I believe I might—’
‘Ta—ta—ta,’ cried Nina impatiently. ‘These flatteries are very ill-timed.’
‘So they would be, if they were flatteries; but if you had patience to hear me out, you’d have learned that I meant a higher flattery for myself.’
‘Don’t I know it? don’t I guess?’ cried the Greek. ‘Have not your downcast eyes told it? and that look of sweet humility that says, “At least I am not a flirt?”’
‘Nor am I,’ said Kate coldly.
‘And I am! Come now, do confess. You want to say it.’