.
    Captain Blunt, with his elbow on the high mantelpiece, had turned away a
little from us and his attitude expressed excellently the detachment of a man
who does not want to hear. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose he could have
heard. He was too far away, our voices were too contained. Moreover, he didn't
want to hear. There could be no doubt about it; but she addressed him
unexpectedly.
    »As I was saying to you, Don Juan, I have the greatest difficulty in getting
myself, I won't say, understood, but simply believed.«
    No pose of detachment could avail against the warm waves of that voice. He
had to hear. After a moment he altered his position as it were reluctantly, to
answer her.
    »That's a difficulty that women generally have.«
    »Yet I have always spoken the truth.«
    »All women speak the truth,« said Blunt imperturbably. And this annoyed her.
    »Where are the men I have deceived?« she cried.
    »Yes, where?« said Blunt in a tone of alacrity as though he had been ready
to go out and look for them outside.
    »No! But show me one. I say - where is he?«
    He threw his affectation of detachment to the winds, moved his shoulders
slightly, very slightly, made a step nearer to the couch, and looked down on her
with an expression of amused courtesy.
    »Oh, I don't know. Probably nowhere. But if such a man could be found I am
certain he would turn out a very stupid person. You can't be expected to furnish
every one who approaches you with a mind. To expect that would be too much, even
from you who know how to work wonders at such little cost to yourself.«
    »To myself,« she repeated in a loud tone.
    »Why this indignation? I am simply taking your word for it.«
    »Such little cost!« she exclaimed under her breath.
    »I mean to your person.«
    »Oh, yes,« she murmured, glanced down, as it were upon herself, then added
very low: »This body.«
    »Well, it is you,« said Blunt with visibly contained irritation. »You don't
pretend it's somebody else's. It can't be. You haven't borrowed it. ... It fits
you too well,« he ended between his teeth.
    »You take
