"Perhaps you think I had Mary's personality transferred and that it exists side by side with my own here in this accidental shell. There are great scientists in Vienna."
"Ah!" He looked at her sharply. "Button, button—I feel a sensation of warmth somewhere."
She laughed again, but her eyes contracted and almost closed. "I fear you are a very romantic young man as well as a very curious one."
"I deserved that. Well, I am curious. But not so curious as—interested."
"I hope you are not falling in love with me." Her deep voice had risen to a higher register and was light and gay.
"I am half in love with you. I don't know what is going to happen——"
"And you want to protect yourself by disenchantment?"
"Perhaps."
"And you think it is my duty …"
"Possibly I'd fall in love with you anyway, but I'd like to know where I stand. I have a constitutional hatred of mystery outside of fiction and the drama."