"
"I admire her profoundly."
"It was your originality then--to do you justice you have a great deal,
of a certain sort--to wish her happiness secured in just that fashion.
Many a man would have liked better himself to make the woman he admired
happy, and would have welcomed her low spirits as an opening for
sympathy. You were awfully queer about it."
"So be it!" said Rowland. "The question is, Are you not glad I was
queer? Are you not finding that your affection for Miss Garland has a
permanent quality which you rather underestimated?"
"I don't pretend to say. When she arrived in Rome, I found I did n't
care for her, and I honestly proposed that we should have no humbug
about it. If you, on the contrary, thought there was something to be
gained by having a little humbug, I was willing to try it! I don't see
that the situation is really changed. Mary Garland is all that she ever
was--more than all. But I don't care for her! I don't care for anything,
and I don't find myself inspired to make an exception in her favor. The
only difference is that I don't care now, whether I care for her or not.
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