"I could write jolly good ones," said Jack serenely.
"I am sure they would be excellent, but they would be nonsense from the other's point of view. It is so holy—so holy! Once it wasn't holy to me; it was merely a bore. Then, when Nadine was born, it was not holy, but very exciting, and hugely delightful. But now it is holy."
Dodo put up her foot, and kicked Jack's knee.
"It's yours, as well as mine," she said. "Poor dear holy Jack. But I love you; that makes such a difference."
Jack caught Dodo's foot in his hand.
"Oh, Jack, let go," she said. "It's bad for me."
Instantly his fingers relaxed; and a look of agonized apology came over his face. Dodo laughed.
"Oh, Jack, you silly old woman," she said. "It is so easy to take you in."
But her laughter quickly ceased, and she became quite grave again.
"I don't want you to be as sick as Nadine and Hughie combined," she cried, "but I should like to make a few cheerful remarks about dying. We've all got to do it, and it doesn't make it any closer to talk about it. It's a pity we can't practise it, so as to be able to do it nicely, but it's one performance only, without rehearsals, unless you die daily like St. Paul. I don't think I shall do it at all solemnly or tragically, Jack, for it would not be the least in keeping with my life to have one tragic scene at the end. Nor would it suit the rest of my life to be frightened at it. You see if we all held hands and stood in a row and said, 'One, two, three, now we'll die,' it wouldn't be at all alarming. And then you see from a religious point of view, God has been such a brick—is that profane? I don't think it is—such a brick to me all my life, that it seems most unlikely that He won't see me through. Jack, dear, you look depressed. I won't talk about it any more. I shall very likely out-live you, and I shall be such a comfort to you when you are dying. I shall be exceedingly annoyed, just as you said you would be if I did it, but, oh, my dear, I shall say au revoir to you with such a stout heart, and when I pass through the valley of the shadow myself how I shall look for your dear gray eyes to welcome me. It will be interesting! And now, as they say at the end of sermons, I must get ready to go out with Nadine. I promised to go out with her for an hour before lunch. Pull me up, and give me a chaste salute on my marble brow. What a good invention you are! It would be worse than going back to the days of hansoms and four-wheelers to be without you. Without undue flattery, it would!"