"Don't mind my leading her on?"
She put it differently. "Don't mind her leading you."
"Well, she won't—so it's nothing not to mind. But how can that 'help,'" he pursued, "with what she knows?"
"What she knows? That needn't prevent."
He wondered. "Prevent her loving us?"
"Prevent her helping you. She's like that," Kate Croy explained.
It took indeed some understanding. "Making nothing of the fact that I love another?"
"Making everything," said Kate. "To console you."
"But for what?"
"For not getting your other."