“When?”
“When you said that about—about the savage desert that didn’t have any culture or anything.”
“That wasn’t what I said, Renfrew,” she reminded him, and her expression became one of cold disapproval. “I said, ‘A cultural!——’ ”
“Well, anyway,” he urged, “you didn’t really mean everybody, did you?”
“Seriously, Renfrew,” she said; “—seriously, I don’t understand how you can live the life you do.”
“Why, I’m not living any life,” he said reproachfully. “I never did do anything very dissipated.”
“I don’t mean that,” she returned impatiently. “I mean what are you doing with your mind, your soul, your spirit? You never have a thought that the common herd around us doesn’t have. You never read a book that the common herd doesn’t read, and you don’t even read many of them! What do you do with your time? I’m asking you!”
“Well, the truth is,” he said meekly, “if you come right down to it: why, most of the time I loaf around in our front yard waiting to see if you’re not coming out or anything.”
His truthfulness did little to appease her. “Yes!” she said. “You sit hours and hours under that walnut tree over there in a perfect vacuum!”
“Well, it is like that,” he agreed, “when you don’t come out, Muriel.”