“I’m afraid I can’t claim that. I only want to conquer for the fun of conquering; ‘to ride in triumph through Persepolis,’ like Tamburlaine, chain up people I don’t like in cages! Oh, of course, Persepolis would be a much nicer place when once I held it, I should be delightful to the people I liked.”
“And all the others would be in cages!”
“They would deserve it if I put them there! I’m very kind-hearted, very tolerant.”
“And when you have conquered the world, what then? As life is not all marching and caging.”
“I shall live in it after my own fashion. I am ambitious, Mr. Odd, but not meanly so, I assure you.”
“No; not meanly so, I am sure.” Odd’s eyes were quietly scrutinizing, as, another sign of the ten years, he adjusted a pair of eyeglasses and looked at her, but not, as Katherine felt, unsympathetic.
“And meanwhile? you will find your weapons in time, no doubt, but, meanwhile, what do you do with yourself?”
“Meanwhile I study my milieu. I go out a good deal, if one can call it going out in this dubious Parisian, Anglo-American mélange; I read a bit, and I bicycle in the Bois with papa in the morning. It sounds like sentimentality, but I do feel that there is an element of tragedy in papa and myself bicycling. Oh, for a ride across country!”
“You rode so well, too, Mary told me.”
“Yes, I rode well, otherwise I shouldn’t regret it.” Katherine smiled with even more assurance under the added intensity of the pince-nez.