"It's quite serious all the same," said he.
"I'm all things to the only man to whom it matters that I should be," said Dodo complacently.
Jack felt rather disgusted.
"I wish you would not state things in that cold-blooded way," he said. "Your very frankness to me about it shows you know that it is an effort."
"Yes," she said, "it is an effort sometimes, but I don't think I want to talk about it. You take things too ponderously. Don't be ponderous; it doesn't suit you in the least. Besides, there is nothing to be ponderous about."
Dodo turned in her chair and looked Jack full in the face. Her face had a kind of triumph about it.
"I want to say something more," said Jack.
"Well, I'm magnanimous to-day," said Dodo. "Go on."
"All you are doing," said he gravely, "is to keep up the original illusion he had about you. It is not any good keeping up an illusion, and thinking you're doing your whole duty."
"Jack, that's enough," said Dodo, with a certain finality in her tone. "If you go on, you may make me distrust myself. I do not mean that as a compliment to your powers, but as a confession to a stupid superstitious weakness in myself. I am afraid of omens."