“Word of honor. Of course you can’t say that. Or, if you did, I shouldn’t believe you.”
“Why should I be disbelieved more than you on such a point?”
“Because it’s one, I think, upon which no man tells the truth to a woman.”
“Don’t you think you will ever care for anybody?”
She hesitated, and once again that pretty, faint tinge of pink color came into her cheeks.
“I don’t say,” she answered, in a dreamy and gentle tone, “that it might not be possible. But it would make no difference. I have laid down a plan of life, and I mean to keep to it. The sort of sentiment you mean has no place in it.”
“But why not? Isn’t there any pleasure in—the sort of sentiment I mean?”
“Oh, yes, I daresay there is. In fact,” and a faint smile appeared on her face, one of those charming smiles that flitted over her face from time to time so lightly that they illuminated the eyes rather than stretched the muscles of the mouth, “I may say I’m sure of it.”
“Then why be so stoical?”
“Well, because, for one thing, I’m convinced that the better I’m known the less I’m likely to be loved—”