“Your dad seems to be able to.”
“I’m not my father.”
“No. But sometimes I wish you’d take a leaf out of his book. From what you tell me he does seem able to enjoy himself.”
“Don’t I?”
“Oh, you’re better than you used to be, but you do frighten me sometimes.”
“When?”
“Oh, when you look at me and don’t see me, and when I go on talking and you don’t hear a word I’m saying. Sometimes I think it’s only because you had that queer time when you first came to London, and then I think you can’t be any different. The world does seem upside down, and it seems to me it might be better if we went right away and made a new start somewheres.”
It comforted René to find that she, too, had her qualms, and that there was some stir behind her constant and equable good humor. He said:
“Oh, no. I think we shall be all right. Only we mustn’t make the mistake of thinking that love makes life easier.”
“Not much fear of that,” she replied, with an odd little wry smile. “Mr. Martin said to me, he said, ‘This here education makes a man queer to live with. If it isn’t idees,’ he said, ‘it’s niceness; and if it isn’t niceness it’s bloody obstinacy,’ he said. . . . And I do try, Renny, I do reelly, though of course if I hadn’t the work during the day I should feel it more.”