“She’s worse than a flirt,” remarked Darnley, gravely. “She’s got something in her that I have always fancied Helen of Troy must have had⁠—a sort of terrible passivity. I know for a fact that she’s had three lovers already. One of them was a young Oxonian who, they tell me, was a terrific rake. Another, so they say, was your predecessor, young Redfern. But none of them⁠—forgive me, Christie dear!⁠—seems to have, as they say down here, ‘got her into trouble.’ None of them seems to have made the least impression upon her! I doubt if she possesses what you call a heart. Certainly not a heart that you, Solent”⁠—he smiled one of his gentlest ironic smiles⁠—“are likely to break. So go ahead, my friend! We shall watch the course of your ‘ furtivos amores ,’ as Catullus would say, with the most cold-blooded interest. Shan’t we, Christie?”