's
own emotions were but scantily chronicled. She had an especial wish to know
whether he had ever been in love - seriously, passionately - and, failing to
gather any satisfaction from his allusions, she at last directly inquired. He
hesitated awhile, and at last he said: »No!« She declared that she was delighted
to hear it, as it confirmed her private conviction that he was a man of no
feeling.
    »Really?« he asked, very gravely. »Do you think so? How do you recognise a
man of feeling?«
    »I can't make out,« said Mrs. Tristram, »whether you are very simple or very
deep.«
    »I'm very deep. That's a fact.«
    »I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that you have no
feeling, you would implicitly believe me.«
    »A certain air?« said Newman. »Try it and see.«
    »You would believe me, but you would not care,« said Mrs. Tristram.
    »You have got it all wrong. I should care immensely, but I shouldn't believe
you. The fact is I have never had time to feel things. I have had to do them, to
make myself felt.«
    »I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously, sometimes.«
    »Yes, there's no mistake about that.«
    »When you are in a fury it can't be pleasant.«
    »I am never in a fury.«
    »Angry, then, or displeased.«
    »I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been displeased that I
have quite forgotten it.«
    »I don't believe,« said Mrs. Tristram, »that you are never angry. A man
ought to be angry sometimes, and you are neither good enough nor bad enough
always to keep your temper.«
    »I lose it perhaps once in five years.«
    »The time is coming round, then,« said his hostess. »Before I have known you
six months I shall see you in a fine fury.«
    »Do you mean to put me into one?«
    »I should not be sorry. You take things too coolly. It exasperates me. And
then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable thing in the
world - the consciousness of having bought your pleasure beforehand, and paid
for it. You have not a day of reckoning staring you in the
