Again Odd smiled down at her, conscious of an inward bitterness.
“Joke away, Peter. You know how much I care for all that woman business—rights and movements and individualities and all that; a silly claiming of more duties that do no good when they’re done. I am an absolutely banal person, Peter; my mind to me isn’t a kingdom. I like outside things. I like gayety, change, diversion. I don’t like days one after the other—like sheep—and I don’t like sheep!”
They had passed through the shrubbery, and before them were meadows dotted with the harmless animals that had suggested Mrs. Odd’s simile.
“Well, we won’t look at the sheep. I own that they savor strongly of bucolic immutability. You’ve had plenty of London for the past year, Ally, and Nice and Monte Carlo. The sheep are really the change.”
“You had better go in for a seat in Parliament, Peter.”
“Longings for a political salon, Ally? I have hardly time for my scribbling and landlording as it is.”
“A salon! Nothing would bore me so much as being clever and keeping it up. No, I like seeing people and being seen, and dancing and all that. I am absolutely banal, as I tell you.”
“Well, you shall have London next year. We’ll go up for the season.”
“You took me for what I was, Peter,” Mrs. Odd remarked as they retraced their steps towards the house. “I have never pretended, have I? You knew that I was a society beauty and that only. I am a very shallow person, I suppose, Peter; I certainly can’t pretend to have depths—even to give Mary satisfaction. It would be too uncomfortable. Why did you fall in love with me, Peter? It wasn’t en caractère a bit, you know.”
“Oh yes, it was, Ally. I fell in love with you because you were beautiful. Why did you fall in love with me?”