"Phil! You unpleasant wretch!"
"Therefore," he said deliberately, "when you sentimentalize over the Belters and how they loved each other madly for several years after having bounced each other, your enthusiasm leaves me incredulous."
"The trouble with every man is this," she said; "any girl who doesn't fall in love with him is heartless—all marble inside—merely because she doesn't flop when he expects it. He gives that girl no credit for warm humanity unless she lavishes it on him. If she doesn't, she's an iceberg and he sticks that label on her for life."
Grayson sat up among the ferns and gathered his legs under him:
"It isn't because you don't care for me," he said, "but I tell you, Helen, you're too complete in yourself to fall in love."
"Self-satisfied? Thanks!" But she still did not believe he meant it.
"You are conscious of your self-sufficiency," he said coolly. "You are beautiful to look at, but your mind controls your heart; you do with your heart what you choose to do." He added, half to himself: "It would be wonderful if you ever let it go. But you're far too practical and complacent to do that."
"Let what go?"
"Your heart. You really have one, you know."
The pink tint of rising indignation still lingered on her cheeks; she looked at this presumptuous young man with speculative brown eyes, realizing that for the first time in his three years' sweet-tempered courtship he had said something unpleasantly blunt and virile to her—unacceptable because of the raw truth in it.