"Is it, indeed--ah! we'd better chat over it for a time. I may persuade you to change your mind."
"You'll never do that," she said with a kind of gloomy triumph, "never."
"Indeed--we'll see," he retorted calmly; "by-the-way I hope you don't mind me smoking, but it is so deucedly shivery in this tomb of a house that it gives me the creeps."
"You can smoke," she said curtly.
"Thanks--you know I love my creature comforts."
He rolled himself a cigarette, lighted it, and then blowing a thin cloud of blue smoke, crossed his legs and looked complacently at her.
"So you say no?" he observed with a smile. "Of course you know the consequences?"
"I do."
"And you are prepared to abide by them?"
"I am."