“That’s all right,” he said quietly—almost sympathetically.
“It is all right,” she said. “I believe in the value of friendship according to Plato.”
“Have you ever thought of calculating its coefficient of energy, or its breaking strain?” said he.
“I do not like people who make fun—who try to make fun of what I believe, Lord Lullworth,” said she.
“Do you dislike alarum clocks?” he asked blandly.
“Alarum clocks?” She was puzzled.
“Yes; I’m an alarum clock—one of the cheap make, I admit, but a going concern and quite effective. I want to rattle in your ears until your eyes are opened.”
“You certainly do the rattling very well. But I’m not asleep. I know what you mean to say about my friends.”
“I don’t mean to say anything about them. I don’t want to try to make them out to be quite such soft roes as you would have me think they are. I don’t want to talk of them; I want to talk of you.”
“Of me? Well?”