"
"And your affection?" he ventured.
Her eyes rested upon his for a moment and then suddenly drooped. A
little tinge of colour stole into her cheeks. For a moment she seemed to
have lost her admirable poise.
"That is not easily disturbed," she told him quietly. "I think that I
must have an unfortunate temperament, there are so few people for whom I
really care."
He took his courage into both hands.
"I have heard it rumoured," he said, "that Matinsky is the only man who
has ever touched your heart."
She shook her head.
"That is not the truth. Paul Matinsky cares for me in his strange way,
and he has a curiously exaggerated appreciation of my brain. There have
been times," she went on, after a moment's hesitation, "when I myself
have been disturbed by fancies concerning him, but those times have
passed."
"I am glad," he said quietly.
His fingers, straying across the tablecloth, met hers. She did not
withdraw them. He clasped her hand, and it remained for a moment passive
in his. Then she withdrew it and leaned back in her chair.
"Is that meant to introduce a more intimate note into our conversation?"
she asked, with a slight wrinkling of the forehead and the beginnings of
a smile upon her lips.
"If I dared, I would answer 'yes'," he assured her.
"They tell me," she continued pensively, "that Englishmen more than any
other men in the world have the flair for saying convincingly the things
which they do not mean.
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