“Oh no! Not when I can be with nice people. Of course not. I don’t believe anybody does. Unless I’m doing something, you know—shooting, or going up a hill, or fishing. Then I don’t mind. But of course I would much rather be alone than with bores, don’t you know? Or—or—well, the other kind of people.”
“What kind?” asked Mrs. Bowring.
“There are only two kinds,” answered Brook, gravely. “There is our kind—and then there is the other kind. I don’t know what to call them, do you? All the people who never seem to understand exactly what we are talking about nor why we do things—and all that. I call them ‘the other kind.’ But then I haven’t a great command of language. What should you call them?”
“Cads, perhaps,” suggested Clare, who had not spoken for a long time.
“Oh no, not exactly,” answered the young man, looking at her. “Besides, ‘cads’ doesn ’t include women, does it? A gentleman’s son sometimes turns out a most awful cad, a regular ‘bounder.’ It’s rare, but it does happen sometimes. A mere cad may know, and understand all right, but he’s got the wrong sort of feeling inside of him about most things. For instance—you don’t mind? A cad may know perfectly well that he ought not to ‘kiss and tell’—but he will all the same. The ‘other kind,’ as I call them, don’t even know. That makes them awfully hard to get on with.”
“Then, of the two, you prefer the cad?” inquired Clare coolly.
“No. I don’t know. They are both pretty bad. But a cad may be very amusing, sometimes.”
“When he kisses and tells?” asked the young girl viciously.
Brook looked at her, in quick surprise at her tone.
“No,” he answered quietly. “I didn’t mean that. The clowns in the circus represent amusing cads. Some of them are awfully clever, too,” he added, turning the subject. “Some of those fiddling fellows are extraordinary. They really play very decently. They must have a lot of talent, when you think of all the different things they do besides their feats of strength—they act, and play the fiddle, and sing, and dance —”