"It isn't just you," she said in a softer voice. "Dull and uninspired as you are, I care for you more than I can say. But life's so endless here. Nothing ever comes off."
"Loads of things come off," he insisted. "Why, to-day there was an intellectual murder in Hoboken and a suicide by proxy in Maine. A bill to sterilize agnostics is before Congress——"
"I have no interest in humor," she objected, "but I have an almost archaic predilection for romance. Why, John, last month I sat at a dinner-table while two men flipped a coin for the kingdom of Schwartzberg-Rhineminster. In Paris I knew a man named Blutchdak who really started the war, and has a new one planned for year after next."
"Well, just for a rest you come out with me to-night," he said doggedly.
"Where to?" demanded Rags with scorn. "Do you think I still thrill at a night-club and a bottle of sugary mousseaux? I prefer my own gaudy dreams."
"I'll take you to the most highly-strung place in the city."
"What'll happen? You've got to tell me what'll happen."
John Chestnut suddenly drew a long breath and looked cautiously around as if he were afraid of being overheard.
"Well, to tell you the truth," he said in a low, worried tone, "if everything was known, something pretty awful would be liable to happen to me."
She sat upright and the pillows tumbled about her like leaves.