Carrie laughed again.
"I'm afraid you got your information from the wrong quarter," said she, quietly. "Not from Dick himself, that's certain."
There was some relief to Max in this confident assertion, but not much. Judging Dick by his own feelings, he was sure that person had not reached the stage of intimacy at which Carrie called him by his Christian name without hankering after further marks of her favor.
"He is fond of you, of course!" said Max, feeling that he had no right to say this, but justifying into himself on the ground of his wish to help her out of her wretched position.
"Well, I suppose he is."
"Are you—of course I've no right to ask—but are you fond of him?"
Carrie shook her head with indifference.
"I like him in my way," said she. "Not in his way. There's a great difference."
"And do you like any man—in his way?"
The girl replied with a significant gesture of disgust, which had in it nothing of coquetry, nothing of affectation.