"If you please; it matters little what we call it."
"A pleasant position for me," said Carson, good-humouredly.
His wife sat silently looking at her plate, while he continued to eat his luncheon with the utmost indifference.
"Perhaps the position is a trying one for you," she said, at length; "but I dictated the terms of our union very clearly in the first instance; you were perfectly free to accept or reject them. You accepted them; your reasons were your own. No doubt they were good ones."
"Quite right; ours is purely a business marriage, or bargain. We can call it that between ourselves."
"If you were a different kind of man, if you cared for me, things might perhaps be different. But you do not care for me; you do not know what love is."
"Excuse me if I say that you are hardly in a position to judge," replied Angus, quietly. "And are you not a trifle inconsistent? If I loved you, in what position should I stand, seeing that your affections are very definitely engaged?"
"Excuse me if, in my turn, I say that you are not in a position to speak as to that."
"You may think so, but I am not blind. Oh no; it's too late in the day to talk of love."
"I wish to do my duty," retorted Olive, rather weakly, it must be confessed.