“Oh no,” returned Kate, seriously. “I don’t suppose you do. Because of course you are accustomed to all sorts of wonderful fruits in India. And in the same way after hunting elephants, and tigers, and having picnics in jangles, I dare say it seems very dull to gather blackberries. That’s quite natural.”
“But suppose,” said Major Clare, repeating his remark to Emberance, but somehow moved to do so in a more serious manner, by the entire good faith of Kate’s excuse for him—“suppose one had outlived the tiger hunts, etc, and that they too had ceased to have any power to charm? Could you understand a sort of general indifference, not to say disgust?”
Kate looked full at him for a moment, with her round brown eyes quite blank. Then they deepened and softened.
“But then you would be unhappy,” she said.
“Well?”
“I mean, something must have happened to make you unhappy.”
She turned her eyes away and blushed. The idea pained her, she hardly knew why.
“You evidently don’t take in the meaning of being blasé.”
“Oh yes,” said Kate, “it is when people are wicked and have worn out simple pleasures.”
Major Clare laughed.