"I decline to join in," said Lionel, dryly, and feeling nonplussed.
"Because you have no sense of humour. What a dull time of it Joan must have, poor child!"
"She does not complain," he objected stiffly.
"Oh, Lord, what is the use of complaining! I never whimper about Jim, though his goodness is even duller than his badness. 'I have tried George drunk, I have tried George sober'"--she was quoting an epigram of Charles II.--"'and there is nothing in George.'"
"You are unnecessarily personal," rebuked Kaimes, annoyed.
"That's right. Tramp on your little corns and you howl."
He intimated that he desired to leave. "My time is valuable."
"Oh, I know yon are a millionaire of seconds and hours. How disagreeable you are, when I want to be amused!"
"You have just informed me that I am dull," he reminded her pointedly.
"So you are; all honest men are dull. Why, I don't know, unless it is that honesty and wit match as ill as beauty and brains. Now don't look at your watch again. I have something to tell you that will make your clerical hair stand on end."