“I’d like to ask you all sorts of questions, Christina Alberta, if I dared,” he said.
She blushed—absurdly. “Any questions you like,” she said.
“Immense questions,” he said. “For example—generally—what do you think you are up to?”
She understood what he meant at once. But she was so unprepared with an answer that she became evasive.
“Up to!” she said, playing for time. “I suppose I’m looking for my lost Daddy.”
“But what are you up to generally? What are you doing with your life? Where are you going?”
“I’m at sea,” she said at last. “Lots of my generation are, I think. The girls especially. You are older than I am; I’m only beginning. I don’t want to seem cheeky, but aren’t you better able to say what you are up to? Suppose—” Her slightly scared gravity broke into an impudent smile that Devizes found very congenial—“suppose you play first?”
He considered that. “Perfectly fair,” he said. “I will. Have another olive. I’m glad you like olives. I do too. Nobody’s called me to account for a long time. What is my game? It’s a fair question.”
But not an easy one evidently.
“I suppose one ought to begin right back at one’s philosophy,” he said. “A long story. But I started the idea.”