But it was mischief rather than kindness that glimmered in her eyes at present, as she asked, “You were in the deepest depths of dejection. Poor man! Why?”
“I can’t precisely determine,” said he, “whether the sympathy that seems to vibrate in your voice is genuine or counterfeit.”
“Perhaps it’s half and half,” she suggested. “But my curiosity is unmixed. Tell me your troubles.”
“The catalogue is long. I’ve sixteen hundred million. The weather, for example. The shameless beauty of this radiant spring day. It’s enough to stir all manner of wild pangs and longings in the heart of an octogenarian. But, anyhow, when one’s life is passed in a dungeon, one can’t perpetually be singing and dancing from mere exuberance of joy, can one?”
“Is your life passed in a dungeon?” she exclaimed.
“Indeed, indeed, it is. Isn’t yours?”
“It had never occurred to me that it was.”
“You’re lucky. Mine is passed in the dungeons of Castle Ennui,” he said.
“Oh, Castle Ennui. Ah, yes. You mean you’re bored?”
“At this particular moment I’m savouring the most exquisite excitement,” he professed. “But in general, when I am not working or sleeping, I’m bored to extermination—incomparably bored. If only one could work and sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year round! There’s no use trying to play in London. It’s so hard to find a playmate. The English people take their pleasures without salt.”