“Take them? Of course you’ll take them,” she said. “Or rather, they’ll take you. And it’s high time you got away from this mouldy corner and allowed some mountain air to get into your fusty old brain!”
“Is it so fusty?” I asked.
“Of course it is. How can it be anything else, considering the life you lead? Sitting by the bedsides of bores; prescribing physic; talking weather; pottering about within a radius of five miles when there’s the whole big world waiting for you. I’ve no great opinion of you, as you know, but you’ve got the best brains in the place—London brains, in short—and you do nothing with them. Perhaps when you see Mont Blanc you’ll get a little ambition. I don’t want you to leave us, but I want you to do something besides patching up our twopenny-halfpenny bodies. Write a book.”
I laughed aloud at this. How little did I foresee!
“Very well, then; make some scientific investigations; anything to justify your gifts.”
“The point is,” I said, “is it wise for Rose and Ronnie to be thrown together as they will be on this trip?”
“Wise?”
“Yes, is it wise?”
“I don’t know what you mean by wise. Do you mean, will it increase their inclination to fall in love?”
“Well—yes, I suppose I do.”