“Besides, they’re all finished,” said David. “You shouldn’t bring them up against me.”
“I didn’t; I was only arguing.”
“Then let’s stop arguing,” said David. “Lord, it’s only just three. There’s that beastly cathedral clock striking. I suppose that’s Norman, too, isn’t it? What are we to do?”
Margery made a little sympathetic grimace at David.
“Oh, David, I do understand,” she said, “and I’m so sorry you’re bored. I know exactly what’s the matter with you.”
“Wish you’d tell me,” said David.
“You know, too, really. You’ve dropped one lot of things and haven’t got the next lot yet. Then there’s this. Do you remember that green snake you used to keep, and how, when it was changing its skin, it used to lie quite still, not eating or drinking, and seeming awfully depressed? I expect that sort of thing is happening to you. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if our minds changed their skins now and then, just like snakes.”
David was interested in this, but it was necessary, in his present humour, to be rather depreciatory.
“Girls do have such rum notions,” he said. “I can’t think where you get them from. But what then?”
“Just that. You have been a little boy up till now, although you were no end of a swell at Helmsworth, and you’re just beginning to see it. You know you would have been furious with me if I had told you, even only last holidays, that you were only a little boy. But you don’t mind now because you know it yourself. You’re changing your skin. What—oh, I forget that word of yours, the Marchester one.”