Isobel came and stood in front of me.
"Arnold!" she said.
"Well?"
"I wish you wouldn't talk to me always as though I were a baby," she said thoughtfully.
I took her hand and made her sit down by my side.
"Come," I protested, "that is not at all fair. I can assure you that I was taking you most seriously. The people who get most out of life are the people who avoid the analytical attitude, who enjoy but who do not seek to understand, who worship form and external beauty without the desire to penetrate below to understand the inner meaning of what they find so beautiful."
"That," she said, "sounds a little difficult. But I do not see how people can enjoy meaningless things."
"The source of all beauty is disillusioning."
"Seriously," Mabane interrupted, "if this conversation develops I am going indoors. Does Arnold want to penetrate into the hidden meaning of that cricket's chirp—or is he going to give us the chemical formula for the smell of the honeysuckle?"
Isobel laughed.