Oberville. Unless it is so beautiful and precious that one prefers to go cold and keep it under lock and key.
Isabel. In the cedar-chest of indifference—the key of which is usually lost.
Oberville. Ah, Isabel, you’re too pat! How much I preferred your hesitations.
Isabel. My hesitations? That reminds me how much your coming has simplified things. I feel as if I’d had an auction sale of fallacies.
Oberville. You speak in enigmas, and I have a notion that your riddles are the reverse of the sphinx’s—more dangerous to guess than to give up. And yet I used to find your thoughts such good reading.
Isabel. One cares so little for the style in which one’s praises are written.
Oberville. You’ve been praising me for the last ten minutes and I find your style detestable. I would rather have you find fault with me like a friend than approve me like a dilettante.
Isabel. A dilettante! The very word I wanted!
Oberville. I am proud to have enriched so full a vocabulary. But I am still waiting for the word I want. (He grows serious.) Isabel, look in your heart—give me the first word you find there. You’ve no idea how much a beggar can buy with a penny!
Isabel. It’s empty, my poor friend, it’s empty.