To be content with little." He spoke these sentences slowly, with short pauses between, and his intelligent regard was fixed on his visitor's with the conscious air of a man who has brought himself to confess something.
"Do you call that simple ?" she asked with mild irony.
"Yes, because it's negative." "Has your life been negative ?" "Call it affirmative if you like.

Only it has affirmed my indifference.
Mind you, not my natural indifference--I HAD none.

But my studied, my wilful renunciation." She scarcely understood him; it seemed a question whether he were joking or not.

Why should a man who struck her as having a great fund of reserve suddenly bring himself to be so confidential?
This was his affair, however, and his confidences were interesting.

"I don't see why you should have renounced," she said in a moment.
"Because I could do nothing.