"What a dangerous young woman, watching and coming to cynical conclusions—but you say truly; one must keep from laughing at things—a very difficult matter generally." He lay back against the brown leather cushion, and proved the truth of this by laughing softly, while he looked at her quaintly.
Katherine Bush suddenly felt that a human being understood with her; it was a delightful sensation.
"Practically the whole of life is a ridiculous sham and must arouse the sardonic mirth of the gods—Here are you and I spending an afternoon arranging a charity in which neither of us takes the least interest—I am dictating fulsome letters to Lord Mayors to induce them to influence others to open their purses—I don't care a jot whether they do or they do not—You are mechanically transcribing my asinine words, and we could be so much better employed exchanging views—on each other's taste, say—or each other's dreamlands."
Katherine Bush looked down and allowed her hands to fall idly in her lap—he should do most of the speaking.
"The only good that I have been getting out of it as far as I can see," he went on, "is the contemplation of your really beautiful hands at work—Where did you get such perfect things in these days?"
She lifted one and regarded it critically.
"Yes, I have often wondered myself. My father was an auctioneer, you know, and my mother's father was a butcher."
Gerard Strobridge was extremely entertained. She was certainly a very wonderful product of such parentage.
"May I look at them closely?" he asked.
She showed not the least embarrassment; if he had been asking to see a piece of enamel, or a china vase she could not have been more detached about it. She held them out quite naturally, and he rose and took them in his own. Their touch was cool and firm, and every inch of his being tingled with pleasure. He examined them minutely finger by finger, stroking the rosy filbert nails in admiration, while an insane desire to clasp and kiss their owner grew in him.