Hugh pointed an almost threatening finger at her.
“But if you had to work sixteen hours a day for yourself you wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do. You can improve the condition of other people to any extent, but you haven’t got any idea as to how to improve your own. The time would hang very heavy for you if you had to use it all in improving your mind. Consequently you tend to think that people who do try to improve their minds are lazy. You haven’t got any real sympathy with art or music or literature, and you mainly want me to go and squall at the opera because you feel that I shall then be doing something definite.”
Peggy put both her elbows on the table.
“Go on about me,” she said. “It’s deeply interesting. Coil and wriggle and sting, you dear serpent!”
“Very well. You are hopelessly conventional.”
Peggy gasped.
“Conventional?” she asked.
“Yes. You have often urged me, for instance, to go into Parliament, merely because it was the obvious thing to do. You yourself do all the conventional things with almost fanatical enthusiasm—bazaars, and Fridays in Lent, and garden parties to congenital idiots. It is all so stereotyped; there is nothing original about it, except when you induce your friends to buy dinner-services that melt and dissolve when the soup touches them, and then expect them to buy more. You can’t——”
Hugh paused a moment.
“Ah, I have it!” he said. “You can’t think of anything. And you don’t want to.”