"No. It was mine, most of it."
"Not all—not half! We did not know how; that is the wretched explanation of it all."
"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the fault is not there."
"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'"
"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name, Alixe!"
After a silence, she began: "One more thing—I must know it; and I am going to ask you—if I may. Shall I?"
He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful bit of news to him:
"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?"
"I do not—dislike you."
"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?"