don't think you care two straws about her," Conway Dalrymple said to his friend John Eames, two days after the dinner-party at Mrs. Dobbs Broughton's. The painter was at work in his studio, and the private secretary from the Income-tax Office, who was no doubt engaged on some special mission to the West End on the part of Sir Raffle Buffle, was sitting in a lounging-chair and smoking a cigar.
"Because I don't go about with my stockings cross-gartered, and do that kind of business?"
"Well, yes; because you don't do that kind of business, more or less."
"It isn't in my line, my dear fellow. I know what you mean, very well. I daresay, artistically speaking,—"
"Don't be an ass, Johnny."
"Well then, poetically, or romantically, if you like that better,—I daresay that poetically or romantically I am deficient. I eat my dinner very well, and I don't suppose I ought to do that; and, if you'll believe me, I find myself laughing sometimes."
"I never knew a man who laughed so much. You're always laughing."
"And that, you think, is a bad sign?"
"I don't believe you really care about her. I think you are aware that you have got a love-affair on hand, and that you hang on to it rather persistently, having in some way come to a resolution that you would be persistent. But there isn't much heart in it. I daresay there was once."
