"Oh, yes, you are--until March first."

"I am pretending to be until March first."

She leant against the banisters, and regarded him critically. "Isn't it
strange," she remarked, "that you dislike so much the idea of my trying
to make you care for me? Some men would be crazy about the process."

"Oh, if I enjoyed the process, I should regard myself as lost."

She shook her head. "I'm not sure that this terror isn't a more
significant confession of weakness. Who is it is most afraid of high
places? Those who feel a desire to jump off."

"I'm not afraid," he returned crossly. "I just don't like it. I
don't want to be made love to. That's one of the mistakes women are
always making. They think all men want to be made love to by any
woman. We don't."

Christine sighed gently. "You're getting disagreeable again," she said
with the softest reproach in her tone. "Let's go on."

"You haven't answered my question," he said. "Are you going to tell
Hickson the truth?"

"How can I? If I told him, Nancy would know at once, and the whole aim of
this plot is to deceive Nancy. However," she added brightly, "I shall do
what I can to alleviate his sufferings. I shall tell him that I am not in
the least in love with you, that you have never so much as kissed me, and
that my present intention is that you never shall."