“You would have preferred me to go with the others?”

“Perhaps,” she replied absently.

“You can’t bear me, isn’t it so?” he asked.

“You are mistaken, Provana.”

“Am I very antipathetic to you?”

“You are not antipathetic to me.”

“At any rate I am not sympathetic?”

“Certainly not,” she replied.

“Then indifferent,” and he bit his lip.

“Exactly; indifferent,” she concluded in a monotonous voice.