Nicholas laughed.
"You've never seen me angry, my dear, and I hope you never will."
"Only over a collar-stud," observed Lily, with defective tact.
The mild joke was not at all a successful one.
Nicholas's hatchet face lengthened immediately and grew inordinately grave.
"I'm talking about necessary anger, my dear girl, the sort of wrath that's pretty nearly indispensable when you're dealing with men and women, if you want to get the best out of them. Weaklings have got to be made to feel that they're up against strength. If a man's strong, he's got to have a temper."
"Nobody could call you weak, Nicholas," said Lily, and the remark, as she had meant it to do, restored his complacency.
"Well, I've many faults, but there are two feelings for which I don't think I shall be held to account, I must say. I'm not a weak man, Lily—and I fancy I'm a pretty shrewd judge of human nature. I think I can sum up men and women fairly correctly, even at first sight."
Lily did not like Nicholas when he boasted. In the depths of her heart, uneasily conscious of arrogance the while, she disputed his statement that he was a judge of human nature, for his judgments seldom tallied with her own, especially where women were concerned.
"I don't suppose," said Nicholas, laughing, "that the fellow I told off this morning will come near me again for a fortnight. I imagine he was pretty thoroughly scared."