'Is it true that you wish to remain with Effie and Tishy? That's what your mother calls it when she means that you will give me up.'
'How can I give you up?' the girl demanded. 'Why can't we go on being friends, as I asked you the evening you dined here?'
'What do you mean by friends?'
'Well, not making everything impossible.'
'You didn't think anything impossible of old,' Raymond rejoined, bitterly. 'I thought you liked me then, and I have even thought so since.'
'I like you more than I like any one. I like you so much that it's my principal happiness.'
'Then why are there impossibilities?'
'Oh, some day I'll tell you!' said Dora, with a quick sigh. 'Perhaps after Tishy is married. And meanwhile, are you not going to remain in Paris, at any rate? Isn't your work here? You are not here for me only. You can come to the house often. That's what I mean by our being friends.'
Her companion sat looking at her with a gloomy stare, as if he were trying to make up the deficiencies in her logic.