He resumed the oars, still sitting facing her, and pushed the boat
slowly forward; and, as they continued their progress in silence, her
brooding glance wavered, at intervals, between him and the coast.

"Haven't you _any_ normal human curiosity concerning me?" he asked so
boyishly that, for a second, again from her eyes, two gay little demons
seemed to peer out and laugh at him.

But her lips were expressionless, and she only said: "I have no
curiosity. Is that criminally abnormal?"

"Yes; if it is true. Is it?"

"I suppose it is too unflattering a truth for you to believe." She
checked herself, looked up at him, hesitated. "It is _not_ absolutely
true. It was at first. I am normally interested now. If you knew more
about me you would very easily understand my lack of interest in people
I pass; the habit of not permitting myself to be interested--the
necessity of it. The art of indifference is far more easily acquired
than the art of forgetting."

"But surely," he said, "it can cost you no effort to forget me."

"No, of course not." She looked at him, unsmiling: "It was the acquired
habit of indifference in me which you mistook for--I think you mistook
it for stupidity. Many do. Did you?"

But the guilty amusement on his face answered her; she watched him
silently for a while.