Barbara's face grew very serious. "Dearest," she said reproachfully, "is that quite a delicate question?"
"Well," said Marjolaine, "I mean, are you still as much in love as ever?"
Barbara avoided her eyes. But she spoke with almost exaggerated feeling. "Dearest! Do you think love can change?"
Marjolaine thought a moment. I suppose she was consulting her own heart. Then she spoke very firmly. "No! I don't think so!"
"And do I not hear the sound of my darling's voice every time Doctor Johnson yells? Is not that enough to keep the flame of love alive even in the ashes of a heart however dead? Oh! if only that innocent fowl had been present when Charles used different language!"
"But did he?" asked Marjolaine innocently.
"I sometimes wonder," answered Barbara, deep in thought.
Marjolaine felt she had said a tactless thing. She must try to soften it. "Perhaps the loss of his hair—" she began.
"Yes," assented Barbara. "But he concealed the honourable scar under a lovely wig." She turned her eyes fondly to Basil's window from which the familiar passage from the slow movement of the Kreutzer Sonata came throbbing. "And—oh, dearest!—can any physical infirmity affect true love?" she cried rapturously.
At last she was coming to the point Marjolaine had been insidiously leading up to. Marjolaine watched her closely. "I suppose not."