"_Are_ you changed?"

"In some ways, no doubt. You, at all events, seem to think so."

"I can wait. You will tell me all about it some day."

"You mustn't take that for granted. We have made friends in a sort
of way just because we happened to come from the same place, and
know the same people. But----"

He waited.

"Well, I was going to say that there's no use in our thinking much
about each other."

"I don't ask you to think of me. But I shall think a great deal
about you for long enough to come."

"That's what I want to prevent."

"Why?"

"Because, in the end, it might be troublesome to me."

Hilliard kept silence awhile, then laughed. When he spoke again, it
was of things indifferent natures.