“But if she didn’t care for you, she couldn’t have been the right person,” she insisted. “Believe me, the right person is waiting somewhere.”
“In that case,” he said lightly, “when we meet I shall doubtless recognise her. I won’t give her the chance to run away a second time. A man who is dilatory in his love affairs deserves to spend his days underground and his nights in hotels. I’m not complaining.”
Suddenly she laughed.
“I don’t believe you are the least bit in earnest,” she observed. “You are one of these contradictory people who look serious, and are always laughing at life.”
He scrutinised the smiling face with added interest.
“I don’t as a rule take life seriously,” he returned,—“and a very good rule too. If I am not mistaken, Mrs Arnott, it is a rule you practise yourself.”
“I don’t know about that,” Pamela said in her bright, young voice. “I take each day as it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, really.”
“For you, perhaps,” he answered. “But some of us would have a dull time if we had no to-morrow in contemplation. I have no quarrel with to-day, for instance; but there are days in my life I could cheerfully wipe off the calendar.”
“There used to be those kind of days in my life once,” she rejoined. She looked up at him, smiling, so radiant in her gladness that he was forced to smile in sympathy with it. “They make the present so much jollier,” she said.
“You enjoy by comparison,” he returned.