"Don't be foolish," she said, not too flippantly.
"Ah," said Conrad now, "what a long while ago that makes it seem!—the boy was not told he was foolish."
"No one could be so unkind to him—and he wasn't."
"You'll make me jealous of that boy before you've done. Don't you believe you could?"
"I don't know what you mean," she declared.
"You used to take him seriously."
"Oh yes, we were capital friends."
"Did he deserve your friendship more than I?"
"You're absurd," she smiled. Her eyes were as blue as they had been in the Solférino Garden. He looked into them, wishing he could feel the despair that had been his that radiant morning.
"Is a wretched boy you only knew for a few weeks to be privileged above a man who has thought of you for years?" Within an ace he had said "for twenty years," but the blunder was nipped in time.