He smiled with a sudden, charming whimsicality.
“I don’t feel much in need of sympathy, you know. It’s a ripping old world, as long as you can indulge a few mild fancies, and be left alone.”
“Mild fancies!”
She turned on him suddenly.
“What have you to do with mild fancies? Why, you can have the world at your feet with a little exertion. Haven’t you any ambition? Don’t you even want to plead in the greatest law court in the world as one of the first barristers in Europe?”
“Not particularly. Why should I? It would be no end of a fag. I’d far rather be left alone.”
“You… you… sluggard,” breaking into a laugh. “If I were Fate, I’d just take you by the shoulders and shake you till you woke up. Then I’d go on shaking to keep you awake. You shouldn’t be wasted on mere nonentity if I held the threads.”
But his blue eyes only smiled whimsically back at her.
“I’m jolly glad you haven’t a say in the matter. Why, I should have to give up cricket, and take to working! You’re as bad as Quin with his slumming, and Dick with his rotten verses.”
“You don’t know yet that I haven’t a say in the matter,” she remarked daringly. “Have a cigarette. I’m awfully sorry I didn’t remember sooner.”