She had loved him once--or thought so, a little month ago--and at a single blow he had slain that love.

Now love so slain has a trick of resurrecting in the guise of hate; and so, she had thought at first had been the case with her.

But this moment proved to her now that her love was dead, indeed, since of her erstwhile affection not even a recoil to hate remained.

Dislike she may have felt; but it was that cold dislike that breeds a deadly indifference, and seeks no active expression, asking no more than the avoidance of its object.
Her calm, reflected in her face of a beauty almost spiritual, in every steady line of her slight, graceful figure, gave him pause a moment, and his hot glance fell abashed before the chill indifference that met him from those brown eyes.
A man of deeper sensibilities, of keener perceptions, would have bowed and gone his way.

But then a man of deeper sensibilities would never have sought this interview that the viscount was now seeking.