Is it your _amour propre_ which is wounded, when you feel sometimes forced to admit that she has as clear an insight into the more important things of life as you yourself ?" "Do you talk like that with Baring ?" he asked.
For several seconds she was silent.

Her eyes had contracted a little.

She seemed to be seeking for some double meaning in his words.
"Captain Baring is an intelligent man," she said, "and he is a man, too, who understands his own particular subject.

Of course it is a pleasure to talk to him about it." "I thought navy men, as a rule," he remarked, "were not communicative." "Do you call it communicative," she enquired, "to discuss the subject you love best with your greatest friend?
But let us not talk any more of Captain Baring.

It is in you just now that I am interested, you and your future.