"No—I wouldn't do that at any rate."
"C'est vrai. I ask—you 'ave an air un peu souffrant. Well, never mind. It's droll though—I think about you just when you ring up—I 'ave a damn pain—not ze tummy-ache this time—and I say: 'Le pauvre jeune homme, 'ere is a chance for 'im to pay me out for kissing 'im when 'e don't want to be kissed.' You remember—I say I send for you one day. But ze old pain—it 'as gone now. You—'ow do you say?—you conjure it away."
"Your pains don't interest me," he said. "For one thing I don't believe you ever had any. I suppose you think a pain is the best entertainment to offer a doctor. It's thoughtful of you, but I didn't come here to be amused."
"Then I wonder what you want of me," she remarked. She went back to her place on the fountain's edge, sitting amidst the flowers and crushing them under her hands. The pose appealed to him as expressively callous, and yet it was innocent too, the pose of a child or an animal who destroys without knowledge or ill-will.
"Do people usually want things from you?" he asked.
"Always—all ze time."
"And you give so much."
She eyed him seriously.
"I give what I 'ave to give."
"And take what you can get."