She shrugged her shoulders, and sat with her hands clasping her knees. “Well—for one thing, you were my intimate companion for three months and never for a single second did you think of making love to me. For all the impression I made on you I might have been your austere maiden aunt. Sometimes I’ve wanted to take you between my teeth and shake you as a terrier shakes a rat. Instead, like an ass, I’ve told you the blatant truth.”
“That’s interesting,” said Martin, calmly. “But you seem to want to hurt everybody—those who don’t fall in love with you and those who do. You hurt our poor old Bigourdin and he hasn’t got over it.”
Corinna looked into the diminutive fire. “I suppose you think I was a fool.”
“I can’t believe it matters to you what I think,” said Martin, his vanity smarting at being lashed for a Joseph Andrews.
“It doesn’t. But you think me a fool all the same. I’ll go on telling you the truth”—she flashed a glance at him. “Bigourdin’s a million times too good for me. I should have led him a beast of a life. He has had a lucky escape. You can tell him that when you go back.”
“I’m not going back.”
“What?” she said with a start.
He repeated his statement and smiled amiably.
“Fed up with being a waiter? I’ve wondered how long you could stick it. What are you going to do now? As a polite hostess, I suppose I should have asked that when you first came into the room.”
“I did expect something of the sort,” Martin confessed, “until you declared you didn’t take an interest in any damned thing.”