It was years since he had laughed, until this friendship had begun.
"What can I say ?" he asked.

"If you, the woman, acknowledge yourself vulnerable, how can I, the man, be so discourteous as to assure you that I am proof?
And yet, I feel that there is no danger for either of us." "You are still sure ?" "And if there were, what harm would be done ?" he laughed again.

"We have no plighted word to break, and I, at least, am singularly heart free.
The world would not come to an untimely end if we loved each other.
Indeed, the world would have nothing to say about it." "To me, it would not," said Unorna, looking down at her clasped hands.
"But to you--what would the world say, if it learned that you were in love with Unorna, that you were married to the Witch ?" "The world?
What is the world to me, or what am I to it?
What is my world?
If it is anything, it consists of a score of men and women who chance to be spending their allotted time on earth in that corner of the globe in which I was born, who saw me grow to manhood, and who most inconsequently arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising my actions, as they criticise each other's; who say loudly that this is right and that is wrong, and who will be gathered in due time to their insignificant fathers with their own insignificance thick upon them, as is meet and just.

If that is the world I am not afraid of its judgments in the very improbable case of my falling in love with you." Unorna shook her head.

There was a momentary relief in discussing the consequences of a love not yet born in him.
"That would not be all," she said.