Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/237

Rh est I had in her stopped long before. These last months—for a long time—it's been nothing but"

He stopped suddenly. He had meant vaguely to express his weariness of the whole affair, but saw too late how it was committing him. He was not a practiced liar.

"Long before," said Teresa slowly. "You mean—before the baby?"

"Yes, I mean—oh, I mean she did interest me somewhat, as you know, at one time—some time ago"

"Ah, it was then," said Teresa in a far-off tone.

"But it's nothing you need care about. I was never emotionally interested in her, if that's what you're driving at. I don't see why you question me. I tell you I don't care for her, and never did, except as a friend, a person that it was interesting to talk to occasionally. She is interesting, objectively—so much temperament and energy somehow gone to waste. But even in that way I'm not interested now."

"Why not?"

"Oh, because nothing interests me just now, except being quiet with you. I'm infernally tired. I'd like to get out of everything and go away somewhere and have nothing to think of but work—my own work, that I haven't been able to do at all this winter."