“Dear Lady Harden,” he returned, flushing, “I assure you that I have not the slightest idea of falling in love with you.”
“Thank Heaven! I adore boys, but a boy in love is really too appalling.”
He caught her hand and looked down at her, something suddenly dominating in his eyes.
“That is nonsense,” he said, shortly. “I am young, but I am not a child, and if I fell in love with you——”
“Well?”
“It would not be as a child loves. That is all.”
He released her hand, and they walked on in silence.
The extraordinary delight that most charming women take in playing with fire had ever been Dagny Harden’s, for the reason that she had never, in all her experiences, been in the slightest danger of burning her delicate fingers. Purely cerebral flirt that she was, her unawakened heart dozed placidly in the shadow of her husband’s strong affection for her.
Once or twice when the suffering she inflicted was plainly written on the face of her victim, her mind shrank fastidiously away from closer examination of pain she had caused, and the disappearance of the man was a relief to her.