“May I ask what you are being just now?”
“You shouldn’t interrupt, Ted. I was going to say that of course there are some people, who neither do or are anything, but they are idiots. I’m not that sort of idiot myself; just now I am being an artist.”
“I don’t doubt it, but what reason have I for believing it?”
“Oh, none at all,” said Tom, “but you asked me. I am meditating. I shall do the better for this some day.”
Markham made an impatient movement in his chair.
“Excuse my saying that I want to go on with my work.”
Tom laughed.
“Poor, dear old Ted, how you must loathe me! You can’t understand my doing nothing any more than I can understand your doing so much. Is your work of such vital importance? What does it all come to?”
“You’ve asked that before,” remarked Ted.
“Yes, and you’ve never answered it. I can understand a man doing archæology; there’s some human interest in that. I like to know what sort of earrings the Greek women used to wear. Oh, Ted, do you know the sepulchral reliefs from Athens? there’s a cast of one in the Museum. It’s wonderful. I shall do one to you when you die.”