"A book in a strange language, then. I don't think I shall ever be able to read it," said Katharine, shaking her head. And she drew down a rebuke upon herself for being solemn.
They had a tacit unwillingness to become serious, about this time; their conversation was made up of trivialities, and he never kissed her except on the tips of her fingers. They avoided any demonstration of feeling that might have revealed to them the anomaly of their position, and they mutually shrank from defining their relations towards one another.
They were standing together at the window, one day, looking down into Fountain Court, which was as hot and as dusty as ever in spite of the water that was playing into the basin in the middle.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked her, so suddenly that she was surprised into an answer.
"I was thinking how queer it is that you and I should be friends like this," she replied, truthfully.
"What's the matter with our friendship, then?" he asked, in the prosaic manner he always assumed when she showed any sentiment. She laughed.
"There's nothing the matter with it, of course. You are the most unromantic person I ever knew. You seem to delight in divesting every little trivial incident of its sentiment. What makes you such a Vandal?"
"But, surely, you are not supposing that there is any romance in our knowing each other, are you?"
"I never dreamed of such a thing," retorted Katharine. "I think there is more romance in your cigarette holder than in the whole of you!"
Sometimes she wondered if he were capable of deep feeling at all, or if his indifference were really assumed.