Patricia modestly cast down her eyes. "You flatter me."
"Dangerous to me. I saw that from the beginning. I ought to have kept out of your way—but that's a futile fashion of avoiding the whole affair.... I'd have gone on thinking about you, and tormenting myself; wondering just how much difference you would have made if only I'd let you.... In fact, I'd probably have overestimated your effect on my life."
"I think not ..." murmured Patricia.
"Well—may I smoke? Thanks!—I prefer to go on with anything I'm afraid of—on with it, and through with it, and done with it. So—here I am."
Patricia lit a cigarette; and reposing face downwards on the peacock cushions of the divan, propped her chin on her hands, and gazed thoughtfully into the ascending spirals of smoke....
"What is impressing me so profoundly that I can hardly bear to mention it without tears, is your tender regard for my attitude in all this. I'm touched by it, really I am. A poor girl in my station of life isn't used to such consideration."
He looked down at her, smiling.
"You're rather a darling ... Pat."
And she knew that behind all his flow of equable talk, lurked some element of the stuff that was going to make this worth while. Very much worth while....
"Just for ten minutes," Dacres proposed, after a pause, "I want you to imagine that I'm my own closest pal, who has known me all my life, and has come to have a little private talk with you to warn you against me. He's probably in love with you too—this pal of mine."