"Is that to be the limit
of your heartless proceedings?"
"I don't know how soon one would grow tired of it. Maybe
in three or four years. But for now--it is very amusing."
"Playing with fire?"
"Bah!" Elfrida returned, going back to her other mood.
"I'm not inflammable. But-to that extent, if you like,
I value what you and the poets are pleased to call love.
It's part of the game; one might as well play it all.
It's splendid to win--anything. It's a kind of success."
"Oh, I know," she went on after an instant. "I have done
it before--I shall do it again, often! It is worth
doing--to sit within three feet of a human being who
would give all he possesses just to touch your hand--and
to tacitly dare him to do it."
"Stop, Elfrida!"
"Shan't stop, my dear. Not only to be able to check any
such demonstration yourself, with a movement, a glance,
a turn of your head, but without even a sign, to make
your would-be adorer check it himself! And to feel as
still and calm and superior to it all! Is that nothing
to you?"
"It's less than nothing. It's hideous!"
"I consider it a compensation vested in the few for the
wrongs of the many," Elfrida replied gaily. "And I mean
to store up all the compensation in my proper person that
I can.
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