"I'm blessed if he
knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
think, when he chooses to be."
"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."
"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
I went away?"
"I hope that you won't try the experiment."
"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
really do care for him?"
"Not in the least."
"Or he for you."
"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
things go, people have to play at caring for each other."
"That's what we call flirting."
"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection.
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