She said it quite simply, without emphasis. And even to him it sounded true.
"Some day perhaps you will know it."
"But—I do not believe it."
He had recovered from the stroke of her greatest weapon, her voice.
"That does not matter. What is matters, not what some one thinks is, or is not."
"Yes," he said. "What is matters. I have come here, not to pay a formal call, or even a friendly visit, but, perhaps, to commit an impertinence."
She smilingly moved her head, and handed him her cigarette-case.
"No, you would never do that."
He hesitated to take a cigarette—and now her bright eyes frankly mocked him, and said, "A cigarette commits you to nothing!" Certainly she knew how to make him feel almost like an absurd and awkward boy; or was it his feeling of overwork, of physical depression, that was disarming him today?
"Thank you."