'Is that a compliment, or otherwise?'
'You would probably think it a compliment. I meant that you were not human enough to be heart-broken.'
'So that's your idea of a compliment!'
'I said I thought it was probably yours.'
'I must have been a curious sort of man five years ago, if I gave you that impression.'
'You were.'
She spoke in a meditative voice, as if, across the years, she were idly inspecting some strange species of insect. The attitude annoyed me. I could look, myself, with a detached eye at the man I had once been, but I still retained a sort of affection for him, and I felt piqued.
'I suppose you looked on me as a kind of ogre in those days?' I said.
'I suppose I did.'
There was a pause.