May I go on ?" And, as she said nothing, he resumed: "During the few minutes we have been accidentally thrown together, I have not seen a quiver of human humour in you.

_There_ is the self-consciousness--the absorbed preoccupation with appearances." "What is there humourous in the situation ?" she demanded, very pink.
"Good Lord! What is there humourous in any situation if you don't make it so ?" "I am not a humourist," she said.
She sat in the bows, one closed hand propping her chin; and sometimes her clear eyes, harboring lightning, wandered toward him, sometimes toward the shore.
"Suppose you continue to row," she said at last.

"I'm doing you the honour of thinking about what you've said." He resumed the oars, still sitting facing her, and pushed the boat slowly forward; and, as they continued their progress in silence, her brooding glance wavered, at intervals, between him and the coast.
"Haven't you _any_ normal human curiosity concerning me ?" he asked so boyishly that, for a second, again from her eyes, two gay little demons seemed to peer out and laugh at him.
But her lips were expressionless, and she only said: "I have no curiosity.

Is that criminally abnormal ?" "Yes; if it is true.

Is it ?" "I suppose it is too unflattering a truth for you to believe." She checked herself, looked up at him, hesitated.