The conversation languished. Razounov forgot so many things that it was impossible to rely upon reminiscence for small talk. And Catherine, who had hitherto been decidedly sceptical about the genuineness of his eccentricities, came to the definite conclusion that they were involuntary, and not manufactured to captivate music-hall audiences. He was at once a genius and a baby. It was absurd to stay there long, so after ten minutes or so of artificially sustained conversation they took their leave, and descended into the electric radiance of the streets. Verreker seemed rather amused than annoyed at the reception Razounov had given them. “You see now,” he said, “why it is impossible for Razounov to give pianoforte lessons in person. For one thing, he wouldn’t remember who his pupils were....” It was while they were passing the shuttered frontage of Swan and Edgar’s that an amazing conversation sprang up. “Razounov made some queer mistakes about me, didn’t he?” she said provocatively. “Yes,” he replied laconically. It was plain that the topic would languish if she did not pursue it further. So she resumed, with an audacity which startled no one more than herself. “Would you mind if he had been right?” The daring of the question nearly took her breath away when she had spoken it. But at the moment her mind was infected with daring. She looked at him boldly as much as to say: You heard right, I _did_ say that. I’ll say it again if you didn’t hear. And there was in the poise of her head an enigmatic coquetry which declared: I may be serious or I may not. I shan’t tell you which.... He looked at her almost contemptuously. Or perhaps It was the changing lights of the shop windows that flung his face into unaccustomed silhouette. “I’m not very particular,” he said nonchalantly. She suddenly took up the air of one who has been contemptuously affronted. (Whether it was real or just an absurd make-believe she herself could not have told.) “Well,” she replied sharply, “I’m sure I shan’t marry anybody who doesn’t want me to.” “I should think not,” he said heavily, and once more the conversation seemed likely to die a natural death. She was so startled at the utter audacity of what she had said that she could not think of anything to revivify it. Strangely enough, it was he this time who gave it an exciting, if not a long lease of new life. “Of course,” he remarked speculatively, as if it were just occurring to him while he said it, “that remark of yours was really quite irrelevant. Logically, I mean. It had nothing to do with what I said.” “What did you say, then?” “I merely said that I was not very particular.” “And what does that mean?” “It means--itself. That’s all....” He paused and added: “And supposing I were to marry you, it would prove it.” “Prove what?” “That I am not particular.”