laughed again. Very jovial and debonair I was that winter morning.

The brief moment in which we might have softened towards each
other was over. There was a glitter in her blue eyes which told me
that it was once more war between us.

'I thought you would get over it,' she said.

'Well,' I said, 'I was only twenty-five. One's heart doesn't break
at twenty-five.'

'I don't think yours would ever be likely to break, Peter.'

'Is that a compliment, or otherwise?'

'You would probably think it a compliment. I meant that you were
not human enough to be heart-broken.'

'So that's your idea of a compliment!'

'I said I thought it was probably yours.'

'I must have been a curious sort of man five years ago, if I gave
you that impression.'

'You were.'

She spoke in a meditative voice, as if, across the years, she were
idly inspecting some strange species of insect. The attitude
annoyed me. I could look, myself, with a detached eye at the man I