"Don't we always rather envy the people who do things with such decision? Don't we sometimes feel that we're wasting time?"
He said this so meaningly that Dorothy pretended not to hear what he had said and looked up to admire the fortified gate of St. Catherine through which they were passing.
"It's like Oxford!" she exclaimed.
Her jealousy of Agnes was stimulated by this comparison, for when they came to the Street of the Knights she was reminded of that day when she walked down the High with Sylvia, that Sunday afternoon which had been the prelude of everything. How many years ago?
"O God!" she exclaimed, reverting in her manner, as she often used in Houston's company, to that hard Vanity manner. "O God! I shall be twenty-nine in March!"
"I'm over forty."
"But you're a man. What does your age matter?"
She was looking at him, and thinking while she spoke how ugly he was. Perhaps he realized her thought, for his face darkened with that blush of the very sallow complexion, that blush which seems more like a bruise.
"You mean I'm too hideous?"
"Don't be silly. Let's explore this gateway."