'Already—and you so young?' she asked, with dilated eyes.
'Already!'
'I trust you mistake, and that romance may come again,' said she, softly.
'It is utterly past, so far as hope goes now.'
'Does the grass of the grave grow above it?' she asked after a pause.
'In one sense—for my hope is buried.'
'I do not think any grave is so deep that we can bury in it all hope of another love and other happiness,' said Margarita, perhaps misunderstanding him, and making a rather leading remark, which Cecil—though not obtuse on such matters—failed, in his utter preoccupation, to perceive. Margarita bit her lip, and shoved her pawns about. She, accustomed to adulation and much admiration, was rather piqued by Cecil's coldness.
'All the world is alike to me now,' said he, rather absently; but she gathered the conviction that he was neither married nor engaged.
'Are you so much of a misogynist that you cannot even be the friend of a woman?' she asked.
'I have not said so,' said he; 'nor am I in any degree a misogynist,' he added, with animation.