"Yes, very," he answered thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to think that some day I shall look back on my boyhood with downright incredulity. I shan't seem to have been that boy in the least."
"What are you going to do in the meantime, to procure that feeling?" She was getting to the point she wished to arrive at, but very cautiously.
"I don't know yet. It's hard to choose."
"You certainly won't want for friends."
"Yes, that's pleasant, of course." He seemed to hint, however, that he did not regard it as very useful.
"Oh, and serviceable too," she corrected him, with a nod of wise experience. "Jobs are frowned at now, but many great men have started by means of them. Robert Disney himself came in for a pocket-borough."
"Well, I really don't know," he repeated thoughtfully, but with no sign of anxiety or fretting. "There's lots of time, Lady Evenswood."
"Not for me," she said with all her graciousness.
He smiled again, this time cordially, as he rose to take leave. But she detained him.