"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
really do care for him?"

"Not in the least."

"Or he for you."

"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
things go, people have to play at caring for each other."

"That's what we call flirting."

"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."

"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
to like him."

"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
chance is small."

Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
baccy, Chiltern?" he said.