"I should think one could do more with life than lounge around clubs and play cards with people who don't play as well as oneself."
Hornby gave her a quick ironic look. "I quite agree with you," he said with his most serious air. "I've been thinking things over very seriously this winter. I'm going to look out for a middle-aged widow with money who'll adopt me."
"I recall that you have decided views about the White Man's Burden."
"All I want is to get through life comfortably. I don't mean to do a stroke more work than I'm obliged to, and I'm going to have the very best time I can."
"I'm sure you will," said Nora, smiling.
But her smile was a little mechanical. Somehow she could no longer be genuinely amused at such sentiments which, in spite of his airy manner, she knew to be real. And yet, it was not so very long ago that she would have thought them perfectly natural in a man of his position. Somehow, her old standards were not as fixed as she had thought them.
"The moment I get back to London," continued Hornby imperturbably, "I'm going to stand myself a bang-up dinner at the Ritz. Then I shall go and see some musical comedy at the Gaiety, and after that, I'll have a slap-up supper at Romano's. England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!" he finished piously.
"I suppose it's being alone with the prairie all these months," said Nora, more to herself than him; "but things that used to seem clever and funny—well, I see them altogether differently now."
"I'm afraid you don't altogether approve of me," he said, quite unabashed.
"I don't think you have much pluck," said Nora, not unkindly.