Evelyn looked up with real interest at this criticism.
“Oh, that is perfectly true,” he said. “Certainly I never have remorse; it must be awful, a sort of moral toothache. All the same, I don’t steal or lie, you know.”
“Merely because lying and stealing are very inartistic performances,” said Tom. “But no idea of morality stands in your way.”
Evelyn got up, looking out over the heat-hazed green of the woods below them with his brilliant glance.
“Is that very shocking?” he asked, with perfectly unassumed naïvetê.
“I suppose it is. Personally, I am never shocked at anything. But it seems to me very dangerous. You ought to wear a semaphore with a red lamp burning at the end of it.”
Evelyn half shut his eyes and put his head on one side.
“I don’t think that would compose well,” he said.
“That is most consistently spoken,” said Tom. “But really, if you are ever in earnest about anything beside your art, you would be a public danger.”
Evelyn turned round on this.