But even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,--and unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare." "Very, very rare!" she sighed.
"You will be thinking of marriage _some_ day, if you are not thinking of it now," he went on.

"Would a husband's friendship--friendship and no more--satisfy you ?" She gazed at him candidly.
"I am sure it would!" she said; "I'm not the least bit sentimental." He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness.

A very close observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty, considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect and like her to say.
"You do not crave for love, then ?" he queried.

"You do not wish to know anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'-- the rapture that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has probably had the largest share in making the world's history ?" She gave a little shrug of amused disdain.
"Raptures never last!" and she laughed.

"And artists and poets are dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any more.