“Stephen, do you love her now?”
“Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,” he said evasively, and with all the strategy love suggested. “But I have not seen her for so long that I can hardly be expected to love her. Do you love her still?”
“How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings we men are, Stephen! Men may love strongest for a while, but women love longest. I used to love her—in my way, you know.”
“Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. In fact, I loved her a good deal at one time; but travel has a tendency to obliterate early fancies.”
“It has—it has, truly.”
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was the circumstance that, though each interlocutor had at first his suspicions of the other’s abiding passion awakened by several little acts, neither would allow himself to see that his friend might now be speaking deceitfully as well as he.
“Stephen.” resumed Knight, “now that matters are smooth between us, I think I must leave you. You won’t mind my hurrying off to my quarters?”
“You’ll stay to some sort of supper surely? didn’t you come to dinner!”
“You must really excuse me this once.”
“Then you’ll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.”