“Have you ever cared for any one?” Mary demanded rashly and foolishly.
“I can’t wander about London discussing my feelings—Here’s a cab—no, there’s some one in it.”
“We don’t want to quarrel,” said Mary.
“Ought I to have told him that I wouldn’t be his friend?” Katharine asked. “Shall I tell him that? If so, what reason shall I give him?”
“Of course you can’t tell him that,” said Mary, controlling herself.
“I believe I shall, though,” said Katharine suddenly.
“I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“The whole thing’s foolish,” said Katharine, peremptorily. “That’s what I say. It’s not worth it.” She spoke with unnecessary vehemence, but it was not directed against Mary Datchet. Their animosity had completely disappeared, and upon both of them a cloud of difficulty and darkness rested, obscuring the future, in which they had both to find a way.
“No, no, it’s not worth it,” Katharine repeated. “Suppose, as you say, it’s out of the question—this friendship; he falls in love with me. I don’t want that. Still,” she added, “I believe you exaggerate; love’s not everything; marriage itself is only one of the things—” They had reached the main thoroughfare, and stood looking at the omnibuses and passers-by, who seemed, for the moment, to illustrate what Katharine had said of the diversity of human interests. For both of them it had become one of those moments of extreme detachment, when it seems unnecessary ever again to shoulder the burden of happiness and self-assertive existence. Their neighbors were welcome to their possessions.
“I don’t lay down any rules,”’ said Mary, recovering herself first, as they turned after a long pause of this description. “All I say is that you should know what you’re about—for certain; but,” she added, “I expect you do.”