"You pique my curiosity; standing with you as he does I can hardly conceive of him as unlucky. Do I know him?"
"You did, if you don't now."
"You speak in riddles, at which I was never any good."
"Sydney Beaton."
He seemed to start away from her. This time not only his face, but his whole bearing, the entire man, seemed to change.
"Miss Forster, are you in earnest?"
His tone, his manner seemed all at once to have grown cold; he could hardly have held his figure more stiffly erect.
"And pray why shouldn't I be in earnest?"
"You place me in a difficult position; what answer am I to give to that?"
"I know very well what you mean. No one knows better than I do that Sydney is not all wisdom, but do you suppose a woman loves a man because he is wise? Go to!"