"Merely because it presented greater opportunities for idleness than any other profession, I suppose."
Katharine swung herself round on her low stool, and looked at him incredulously.
"But don't you ever want to do anything,—you with all your brains and your talents?" she cried impatiently. "Surely you must have some ambition?"
"Oh, no," replied Paul, arranging the cushions at the back of his head and sinking down on them again. "I hope I shall always be comfortable, that's all; and I have enough money for that, thank the Lord!"
"Supposing you had been poor?"
"Don't suppose it," rejoined Paul; and her puzzled features relaxed into a smile.
"I can't think why you have a face like that, then," she said reflectively.
"What's the matter with my face? Does it suggest possibilities? To think that I might have been a minor poet all these years, without knowing it!"
Katharine returned to her examination of the flower beds; and Paul lay back, and blew rings of smoke into the air, and watched her through them with an amused look on his face. He recalled some casual words of Heaton's which had annoyed him very much at the time,—"If I'm not in love with a woman, I don't want to give her another thought;" and he glanced at her slim waist as she sat there, and tried lazily to analyse his own feelings towards her.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, turning round again.