"I seem to be shaking a red rag at a bull!"
"If," he continued, "Society is the product of civilization I am an untutored savage. Not an ungrateful one, mark you, but one thankful for his savagery. Afternoon teas, flower shows, and the hundred and one idiotic things which go to make up the ordinary every-day life in London ought to be abolished by a drastic Act of Parliament."
Her smile merged into laughter. She had gauged his capacity for exaggeration by this time. The beginning of her understanding of him was setting in. Her laugh over, she said:
"I think you are very drastic."
"I hope not!"
"Why?"
"Because if you think so, I have been mistaken. I have formed a wrong estimate of your character if you care for those things."
"And supposing I did? Would it be, think you—unwomanly?"
"As the world wags? No. On the contrary. The absolute quintessence of womanliness in nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a possible thousand."
"But——"