"Am I to accept that as flattery?"
"Is it?" he countered; then, eager to learn just how much she knew, he remarked casually: "Thieves are thick as mosquitoes in Asiatic countries."
"I know," was her unsatisfactory response, and, proof that a woman can be quite uncommunicative when she wishes, she diverted conversation into another channel. "I'm afraid, Mr. Tavernake, I've impressed you as being—well, a foolish flippant child."
His eyes met hers—barely a second.
"Why should you think that?"
She shrugged. "Oh, my endless talk of—of travel."
He took out his pipe, asked permission to smoke; filled the bowl and lighted it before he quoted:
We are those fools who could not rest
In the dull earth we left behind....
She took him up: "Doesn't it go on with—"
The world where wise men live at ease
Fades from our unregretful eyes,
And blind across uncharted seas
We stagger on our enterprise.