"Don't you?"
"I mean I don't see how they ought."
"Quite so."
"You're really getting a little bit more amusing," said Ora with a grateful look.
He felt an impulse to be brutal with her, to do, in another sphere of action, very much what Mr. Hazlewood had done when he insisted that a business arrangement must be regarded in a business-like way. Suppose he told her that questions of morals, with their cognate problems, ought to be regarded in a moral way? He would perhaps be a strange preacher, but surely she would forget that in amazement at the novelty of his doctrine!
"How old are you?" he asked her, aghast this time at his question but quite unable to resist it.
She glanced at him for a moment, smiled, and answered simply,
"Twenty-seven last December."
He was remorseful at having extracted an answer, but he bowed to her as he said,
"You've paid me a high compliment. You're right, though; it wasn't impertinence."