"Since we are having such a very interesting conversation," she said, "pray let's continue it. There's nothing so spicy and agreeable as a tête-à-tête between husband and wife who are thoroughly disillusioned; don't you think so?"
Lawrence said nothing. He glanced about the room like one who would be glad to escape. He was weary and faint, but he would not seem weary if he could help it; and there was a weight like lead on his heart. He thought, with seeming triviality, that he had never before quite known what that phrase, "a heart as heavy as lead," meant.
"You have decided now that you never loved me," she continued.
"Why need we discuss that question?" he asked.
"Oh, because it suits me to discuss it. I feel analytical this morning. Let us dissect a few feelings. My husband has just had an interview with an old flame, and now he comes and tells me he thinks he never loved me. You must believe that I shall be interested in this subject. Pray, Rodney, if I may ask, what did you feel that made it possible for you to take me to Boston that night?"
Lawrence sat gazing at Prudence as she spoke. He had a fanciful notion that his heart was like ashes as well as like lead. How could he have been so blind? He could not now imagine that he had felt what he had felt for Prudence. Some one has said that there is nothing so dead as a dead passion.
"I suppose," he said, slowly and drearily, "that I had a fancy for you. You infatuated me; it was a kind of intoxication."
"Do you eliminate passion from love?"
She put the question as if she were making an inquiry concerning a symptom of disease.
"No, but love is not all passion. It has a basis of tenderness and respect; it is not a delirium."