“Oh, we're all right,” he said. “You know what I mean—”
“You like your own company? Do you?—Sometimes I think I'm nothing when I'm alone. Sometimes I think I surely must be nothing—nothingness.”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No. I only want to be left alone.”
“Not to have anything to do with anybody?” she queried ironically.
“Not to any extent.”
She watched him—and then she bubbled with a laugh.
“I think you're funny,” she said. “You don't mind?”
“No—why—It's just as you see it.—Jim Bricknell's a rare comic, to my eye.”
“Oh, him!—no, not actually. He's self-conscious and selfish and hysterical. It isn't a bit funny after a while.”