"No."
"Then I have misunderstood you. What is the matter that does interest you, Geraldine?"
She made no reply.
He said, carelessly good-humoured: "I like women. It's curious that they know it instinctively, because when they're bored or lonely they drift toward me.... Lonely women are always adrift, Geraldine. There seems to be some current that sets in toward me; it catches them and they drift in, linger, and drift on. I seem to be the first port they anchor in.... Then a day comes when they are gone—drifting on at hazard through the years——"
"Wiser for their experience at Port Mallett?"
"Perhaps. But not sadder, I think."
"A woman adrift has no regrets," she said with contempt.
"Wrong. A woman who is in love has none."
"That is what I mean. The hospitality of Port Mallett ought to leave them with no regrets."
He laughed. "But they are not loved," he said. "They know it. That's why they drift on."