"Proof is proof enough—to a discerning mind," replied he. A pause, she staring into the fire, he studying her. "Strange!" he went on, suspiciously abstract and judicial. "He's a man I'd have said you couldn't care for."
"So should I," said she, to herself rather than to him.
He was more astonished and interested than he let appear. "There's no accounting for caprices of the heart," he pursued. "But it's a fairly good rule that indifference is always and hugely inflammatory—provided it conveys the idea that if it were to take fire, there would be a flame worth the trouble of the making."
She made no comment.
"And you came on here to win him back?"
"Did I?"
"A woman always does everything with a view to some man." He smiled in cheerful self-mockery. "And I deluded myself into believing you thought only of art. Yes, I believed it. Well—now what?"
"Nothing," she said drearily. "Nothing."
"You won, and then discovered you didn't care?"
"No." She made a gesture that suggested to him utter emptiness. "I lost," she said, as her hands dropped listlessly back to her lap.