The woman flushed a little.
"It is hardly worth the telling, since you do not remember. There was a time, you know, when you had some whim about it, and when I had to report to you. You professed to be solicitous about my health or personal appearance, or whatever it was that led you to the demand. And you have forgotten."
He was uneasy. "That is true, Ada. I did have that fad, didn't I? Well, I forget the figures, but I see that you are still yourself, and as you should be."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Take the big chair. It's the one you like best. You see I don't forget certain trifles" (this with a slight trembling inflection). "And tell me about yourself. I haven't seen you for three months and over. Haven't you been out of town. Couldn't you have written me a note."
"I've not been out of town. I might have written you a note, but I didn't suppose it mattered."
"Yet there is a legend to the effect that men and women sometimes get to be such friends, and have such relations, that a sudden unexplained absence of three months matters a great deal."
"That is so. But—what is the use, Ada? It doesn't matter with us, does it? Are we not each capable of taking care of ourselves? Were we ever of the conventionally sentimental?"
She sighed. "I suppose not. But it grew that way a little, didn't it,
Grant? Has it all been nothing to you?"
"I won't say that," he answered. "It has been a great deal to me, but isn't it wiser to make all in the past tense now? What have we to gain?"
She tried to smile. "Nothing, I suppose." Then breaking out fiercely:
"You are a strange man! You are like the creature Margrave, in
Bulwer's hard 'Strange Story,' with mind and body, but with no soul nor
sympathy."