“That’s interesting,” said Martin, calmly. “But you seem to want to hurt everybody—those who don’t fall in love with you and those who do. You hurt our poor old Bigourdin and he hasn’t got over it.” Corinna looked into the diminutive fire. “I suppose you think I was a fool.” “I can’t believe it matters to you what I think,” said Martin, his vanity smarting at being lashed for a Joseph Andrews. “It doesn’t. But you think me a fool all the same. I’ll go on telling you the truth”—she flashed a glance at him. “Bigourdin’s a million times too good for me. I should have led him a beast of a life. He has had a lucky escape. You can tell him that when you go back.” “I’m not going back.” “What?” she said with a start. He repeated his statement and smiled amiably. “Fed up with being a waiter? I’ve wondered how long you could stick it. What are you going to do now? As a polite hostess, I suppose I should have asked that when you first came into the room.” “I did expect something of the sort,” Martin confessed, “until you declared you didn’t take an interest in any damned thing.” Then they both laughed. Corinna stretched out a hand. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’ve been standing nearly all day in front of the tube station, dressed in a green, mauve and white sandwich-board and selling newspapers, and I’m dog-tired and miserable. I would ask you to have some tea, but that would only bring out Isabel, who would talk our heads off. Why have you left Brantôme?” He told her of Bigourdin’s proposal and of Fortinbras’s counsel; but he made no reference to the flashing of the divine Lucilla across his path. Once he had confessed to her the kiss of the onion-eating damsel who had married the plumber. She had jested but understood. His romantic knight-errant passion for Lucilla was stars above her comprehension. When he mentioned the fact of the death of Mrs. Fortinbras, Corinna softened. “Poor little Félise! It must have been a great sorrow to her. I’ll write to her. She’s a dear little girl.” She paused for a few moments. “Now, look here, Martin,” she said, seizing a fragile poker and smiting a black lump of coal the size of a potato, “it strikes me that as fools we’re very much in the same box. We’ve both thrown over a feather-bed existence. I’ve refused to marry Bigourdin and incidentally to run the Hôtel des Grottes, and you have refused to run the Hôtel des Grottes and incidentally marry Félise.” “There was never any question of my marrying Félise,” cried Martin hotly. She scrambled to her feet and flung an impatient arm. “You make me tired. Have you a grain of sense in your head or an ounce of blood in your body?” Martin also rose. “And you?” he countered. “What have you?” “Neither,” said Corinna. “In that case,” said Martin, gathering up hat, stick and gloves, “I don’t see why we should continue a futile conversation.”