“Clean bowled!” he said. “’Pon my word, Paddy, there’s no getting in edgeways with you.”
“Give up trying,” dryly. “Read a book and improve your mind instead.”
“Does it need it so badly?”
“Never too old to learn,” without looking up.
“You needn’t say it as if I were your grandfather. I’m only thirty-five, and what are you? Let me see, Doreen is twenty-five, and you are eighteen months younger, therefore you must be either twenty-three or twenty-four. Time you were growing wiser, Paddy, and suiting yourself to your world, and its exigencies.”
“I suppose you mean your world!”
“Mine and yours. It’s got to come some day, Patricia. Why not now?”
She shut her lips more tightly, and pretended to be buried in her paper.
“You can’t possibly know what you are reading about. Put the paper down and talk for a little. You will only damage your eyesight.”
Still no answer.