"The master-mind—how self-centred you are!"
Whatever had happened, certainly the old touch of intellectual diablerie was still hers, and he laughed good-humoredly. Yes, she might be this or that, she might be false or true, she might be one who had sold herself for mammon, and had not paid tribute to the one great natural principle of being, to give life to the world, man and woman perpetuating man and woman; but she was stimulating and delightful without effort.
"And what are you doing these days?" he asked. "One never hears of you now."
This was cruel, but she knew that he was "inciting her to riot," and she replied: "That's because you are so secluded—in your kindergarten for misfit statesmen. Abandon knowledge, all ye who enter there!"
It was the old flint and steel, but the sparks were not bright enough to light the tinder of emotion. She knew it, for he was cool and buoyant and really unconcerned, and she was feverish—and determined.
"You still make life worth living," he answered, gaily.
"It is not an occupation I would choose," she replied. "It is sure to make one a host of enemies."
"So many of us make our careers by accident," he rejoined.
"Certainly I made mine not by design," she replied instantly; and there was an undercurrent of meaning in it which he was not slow to notice; but he disregarded her first attempt to justify, however vaguely, her murderous treatment of him.
"But your career is not yet begun," he remarked.