"Then not as a friend?"
"Why, certainly not, Mr. Merwyn. You know that you are not my friend. What does the word mean?"
"Well," said he, flushing, "what does it mean?"
"Nothing more to me than to any other sincere person. One uses downright sincerity with a friend, and would rather harm himself than that friend."
"Why is not this my attitude towards you?"
"You, naturally, should know better than I."
"Indeed, Miss Vosburgh, you little know the admiration you have excited," he said, gallantly.
An inscrutable smile was her only response.
"That, however, has become like the air you breathe, no doubt."
"Not at all. I prize admiration. What woman does not? But there are as many kinds of admiration as there are donors."