“I had no time——”
“Of course not. Sanscrit is more important than friends. I understand. A friend might have dropped in of an evening and interrupted your studies.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Of course you did not go in for athletics.”
“Exercise,” he said, “scientifically taken, is essential to a clear mind. I exercise regularly morning and evening. If you are asking whether I allowed myself to be pummeled and trampled into the mud at football, or if I played any other futile game, I did not.”
“So you know almost everything there is to be known about books, but nothing about human beings.”
“I fancy I know a great deal about human beings.”
“Mr. Pell,” she said, becoming more determined to crush in the walls of his ego, “I’ve a mind to tell you exactly what I think of you.”
For an instant his eyes twinkled; Carmel was almost sure of the twinkle and it quite nonplused her. But Evan’s expression remained grave, aloof, a trifle patronizing. “I understood I was coming here to—work.”
“You are.”