“Just fancy,” Stuart burst forth, “the indignity of having to ask permission before one could keep a fox-terrier or a wagon-lit. I can not understand the state of mind which leads a man to marriage: the eternal sucking of the same orange, when there are thousands for his plucking.”
His tone was of the lightest, but Peter understood that it veiled a warning. And she was conscious of a sudden rage that he should deem a warning necessary.
“Prince of Orange,” she mocked him; “you probably waste your kingdom.”
But he boasted: “Not so. For I am aware of the exact instant just before the juice is all spent and the skin will taste bitter in my mouth. And then I cast away my orange and gather another. There are so many in the grove that sometimes indeed I am tempted to leave one half-sucked, to try the flavour of the next. But I don’t ... I don’t.”
Merle put in: “You are speaking symbolically.”
“I am,” smiling at her—his leprechaun smile.
“And what of the pips? do you swallow them in the process?”
“Rather than spit them, yes. I likewise suck silently, and with great haste, greediness and appreciation.”
“I wonder,” mused Peter, into her curling smoke-wreaths, “if the orange has any views on the subject....”
Stuart heard: “That depends on the thickness of its skin.”