“Oh, if I could go! If I could go!”
“Couldn’t we all go back together next year?”
“Cecil cannot leave England. I suppose you have not heard——”
“That great things are expected of him. I take several London papers; and, when travelling, they are always at the clubs. How proud you must be of him.”
“I am;” but she was thinking of California; and there seemed to be a hundred things to be talked about at once. There had been a time when she had talked to Randolph about nearly everything that passed through her mind. That time came sharply back to her.
“That is one of the changes in you,” he was saying. “You have the least little more pride in your carriage. You never were very humble, but this is a sort of double duplicated pride, as it were. And—yes—you are more intellectual looking. It is that which has dissipated your girlishness without ageing you a particle.”
“Oh, I am intellectual! I’ve been on one long intellectual orgie for the last three years. I’m ready for a change. If you’ve been cramming your brain, don’t you try to impress me; and don’t you dare to mention politics.”
Randolph laughed. “I should not think of such a thing. My interest is too cursory to burden my conversation. And as for books—I’ve read a good many on rainy days since I saw you last, and am better for them; but I have spent the greater part of the time living books of many sorts.”
“Have you grown serious? You used to take life so lightly. So did everybody. So did I.”
“I am afraid I still take life with reprehensible lightness. I have got an immense amount of fun out of the old world.”