“Deceive not thyself, my child. A long and careful study of the differences between male and female intellect has finally convinced me that the latter is incapable of generalities, of completely impersonal discussion. Follow the wriggling rivers of her speech backwards to their source, and you will discover the Subjective Sea. But do you know,” with renewed earnestness; “I believe my personality does justify my swank. Otherwise you wouldn’t put up with me as you do. And if it justifies my swank, then my swank is non-existent. Swank is a thing which proceeds from a misconception of one’s status.”
“Is his swank non-existent?” murmurs Merle to the swimming atoms in a last slanting sunray; “Oh, I trow not.”
“‘Swagger’ is slightly different again.” Stuart is enjoying himself immensely. “It is the outward and visible manifestation of the swank that resides in the soul. The ‘agger’ in fact. But your question respecting the mitigating circumstances of our consciousness thereof, is rot, my dear Peter. Because swagger is consciousness, to start with. Shall we paddle her home, Merle?”
The haze of evening has crept up, white-footed, from the south. A Dryad moves from the bank, seats herself beside a Faun. The rhythmic dip and swirl of their paddles dies away into silence.
... And the pride of them was like wind sweeping through the hair; pride in their ability to maintain without disaster this strangely exhilarating friendship of one and two; flaunt it in the very face of the Inevitable.
CHAPTER V
DIAMONDS ARE TRUMPS
“I want to go a-maying,” Peter announced. Nor was her ardour abated when Merle reminded her that April was still in its heyday.
“That makes no difference if the spirit of May-day be in me. The weather is a sheer intoxication, and calls for revelry. It’s not your birthday by any chance, is it?”
“If you can wait three weeks——”