"D'you mean I'm wrong? Don't you care for me?"
"'Care'? I'm thinking about love! You don't know what love is! All the time you've been talking.... So cold and collected.... If you were in love with me, you'd want to take me in your arms, you'd be transfigured, there'd be radiance, glory in your eyes, you'd hold me as if you never meant to let me go!... You—you talked like a leading article; you never even said you loved me."
"I thought we might take that as read."
"But look at you now! If you loved me, you wouldn't want to keep away; you wouldn't be able to."
"I've got a certain amount of self-control."
"To resist something that's not a temptation?"
She came slowly back to him and stood gazing up into his face. As on the night when she had darted from him at the Croxton Ball, her cheeks were white and hollow, her eyes were nearly black; it was the morbid, feverish beauty of a consumptive kept alive by force of will. The spray of orchids rose and fell with her breathing, and he could have caught and encircled her slender, boyish figure with one arm.
"You're looking divine to-night," he murmured.
"Is that all you've got to say?"
"No! I'm responsible for you at this moment. And, if I were you, I should think twice before you blaspheme against the Holy Ghost again. You don't doubt that I love you."