"What was it you were saying about selfishness?" she asked. "Oh, I remember. It was nonsense."
"Certainly."
She laughed, adding: "Selfishness is so simply defined you know."
"Is it? How."
"A refusal to renounce. That covers everything," she concluded.
"Sometimes renunciation is weakness--isn't it?" he suggested.
"In what case for example?"
"Well, suppose we take love."
"Very well, you may take it if you like it."
"Suppose you loved a man!" he insisted.
"Let him beware! What then?"
"--And, suppose it would distress your family if you married him?"
"I'd give him up."
"If you loved him?"
"Love? That is the poorest excuse for selfishness, Mr. Siward."
"So you would ruin your happiness and his--"
"A girl ought to find more happiness in renouncing a selfish love than in love itself," announced Miss Landis with that serious conviction characteristic of her years.
"Of course," assented Siward with a touch of malice, "if you really do find more happiness in renouncing love than in love itself, it would be foolish not to do it--"
"Mr. Siward! You are derisive. Besides, you are not acute. A woman is always an opportunist. When the event takes place I shall know what to do."
"You mean when you want to marry the man you mustn't?
"Exactly. I probably shall."
"Marry him?
"Wish to!"
"I see. But you won't, of course."
She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill.
"We are going much too fast," said Miss Landis, smiling.
"Driving too fast for--"
"No, not driving, going--you and I."
"Oh, you mean--"
"Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already."
"In the country, you know, people--"
"Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a week's end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward."
"Let us sit very still and think it over," he suggested. And they both laughed.
It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material of interest in the eight words: "I will consider your request when you arrive.