“Why, aren’t you ambitious? It’s a pity for a man not to be ambitious.”
“My ambitions don’t lie in those lines. Besides, I’m a fool. Every one has told me so scores of times.”
Later on in the evening the two were sitting out in a charming little courtyard in the centre of the house, open to the air, and walled with banks of flowers. The place was lit up by small electric lights among the flowers, and the air was deliciously cool and dim after the hot glare of the ball-room. The steady hum of a London night came to them clearly in the stillness, that noise of busy people, which never is quiet. The place was nearly deserted, and Maud was fanning herself lazily.
“There, do you hear it?” she said; “that’s the noise I love. I like to know that I am in the middle of millions of people.”
Tom smiled.
“Ah! you like it too, do you?” he said. “It’s the finest thing in the world. But I always want to get at it, to make its heart beat quicker or slower as I wish. That’s a modest ambition, isn’t it?”
Maud stopped fanning herself, and dropped her hands into her lap.
“Yes; how is one to do it? I’m going to do it too, you know. We shall have to send word to each other whether its heart is to go quick or slow, else there will be trouble. I feel so dreadfully small in London. I suppose it is good for one, but it’s very unpleasant.”
“No, it’s not good for one, except that if you know you are small, you are already half-way to being big,” said Tom. “At any rate, one can never be big without the consciousness of being small.”
Maud sat still for a moment, saying nothing.