“That’s rather a good simile,” said Sallie condescendingly.
“My dear child, bar joking, I wish you’d tell me something. These two people, I quite agree with you, are out of the ordinary. Are you wholly and solely curious, and analytical, and interested—or do you ever feel sorry for them?”
I really wanted to know, and Sallie saw that.
“Honestly, I don’t think I really feel sorry for them, because if the whole thing came to an end to-morrow—say, she went back to her husband and he started an affair with somebody else—I should be disappointed, in a way. I don’t want it all to peter out in some trivial way. I want to have something worth watching.”
“Quite impersonally?”
“Of course,” said Sallie.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” suddenly said Claire behind me. Neither of us had seen her. “A child of your age has neither the experience nor the understanding to discuss that sort of problem.”
From being natural, if patronizing, Sallie instantly became stiffly arrogant.
“I’ve already been training for some time with a view to making that or any other sort of problem affecting human beings my work in life.”
“Even a little medical student of two years’ standing doesn’t know everything, darling.”