[The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers]@TWC D-Link bookThe Firing Line CHAPTER I 15/18
Many do.
Did you ?" But the guilty amusement on his face answered her; she watched him silently for a while. "You are quite right in one way," she said; "an unconventional encounter like this has no significance--not enough to dignify it with any effort toward indifference.
But until I began to reprove man in the abstract, I really had not very much interest in you as an individual." And, as he said nothing: "I might better have been in the beginning what you call 'human'-- found the situation mildly amusing--and it _is_--though you don't know it! But"-- she hesitated--"the acquired instinct operated automatically.
I wish I had been more--human; I can be." She raised her eyes; and in them glimmered her first smile, faint, yet so charming a revelation that the surprise of it held him motionless at his oars. "Have I paid the tribute you claim ?" she asked.
"If I have, may I not go overboard at my convenience ?" He did not answer.
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