"Chiefly for mine, but not altogether—not nearly altogether. I am not made of stone, but I have eyes that are turned inwards. A mental squint!"
"It never showed."
She laughed. "Oh, I'm an expert in my profession, but I'm very sick of it, so don't say nice things to me. Don't help me to think about myself."
He raised his brows in a comical dubiety. "This sounds a little morbid."
"And I want to think it's the beginning of health." She turned quietly to stand by the window, and as she looked out on the street, where spring was coming, he found a new dignity in her pose, one born of some dignity of the mind, and her thinness, the manner in which her hand hung by her side, something in the lift of her head, impressed him with a sense of pathos hitherto alien to his thoughts of her. Yet, when she faced him, she was vivid again, and sparkling. He noticed how the words seemed to come upon her lips before she spoke them.
"You'll tell me when you have evicted the lady?"
"Yes," he said mournfully. "It's quite likely she'll refuse to go quietly. We may have to invent a rich relative who dies and leaves her with a competency."
"A little courage would be cheaper."
"But that's what we haven't got."
"You begin to make me wonder if your compliments are more than sops."