“I daresay I could, if it’s anything within my sphere of knowledge.” He paused, expectant.
“Then tell me, please, why you keep your Japanese fan in your fireplace,” she requested.
“Why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t it strike you as a good place for it?”
“Admirable. But my interest was psychological. I was wondering by what mental processes you came to hit upon it.”
“Well, then, to be frank, it wasn’t I who hit upon it; it isn’t my Japanese fan. It’s a conceit of my landlady’s. This is an age of paradox, you know. Would you prefer silver paper?”
“Must one have one or the other?”
“You’re making it painfully clear,” he cautioned her, “that you’ve never lived in lodgings.”
“If you go on at this rate,” she retorted, laughing, “I shall never get my task accomplished. Here are twenty times that I’ve commenced it, and twenty times you’ve put me off. Shall we now, at last, proceed seriously to business?”
“Not on my account, I beg. I’m not in the slightest hurry,” protested he.
“You said you were devoured by curiosity.”