“I call it a pretty big one,” she answered.
“I mean the hand—not the kiss,” he said smiling.
“You really are sophisticated,” she told him. “Only fancy if you had reversed those nouns!”
“I know,” he said; “but I’ve kissed hands before. You see, I’m more talented than you think.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said smiling. “I really am beginning to think very well of you. You don’t want me to cease to, do you?”
“Why do women always say ‘Don’t be silly’?” he queried. “I wish I could find one who wanted to be very original, and so said, ‘Do be silly’, just for a change.”
“Dear me, if women were to beg men to be silly what would happen?” Mrs. Rosscott exclaimed. “The majority are so very foolish without any special egging on.”
“But it is so dreadfully time-worn—that one phrase.”
“Oh, if it comes to originality,” she answered, “men are not original, either. Whenever they lie down in the shade, they always begin to talk nonsense. You reflect a bit and see if that isn’t invariably so.”
“But nonsense is such fun to talk in the shade,” he said, spreading her fingers out upon his own broad palm. “So many things are so next to heavenly in the shade.”