“You might be, really, for all the tea you drink! Why didn’t you go in for some high profession?”
“How was I to go in? Who the devil was to help me?” Hyacinth inquired, with a certain vibration.
“Haven’t you got any relations?” said Millicent, after a moment.
“What are you doing? Are you trying to make me swagger?”
When he spoke sharply she only laughed, not in the least ruffled, and by the way she looked at him seemed to like it. “Well, I’m sorry you’re only a journeyman,” she went on, pushing away her cup.
“So am I,” Hyacinth rejoined; but he called for the bill as if he had been an employer of labour. Then, while it was being brought, he remarked to his companion that he didn’t believe she had an idea of what his work was and how charming it could be. “Yes, I get up books for the shops,” he said, when she had retorted that she perfectly understood. “But the art of the binder is an exquisite art.”
“So Miss Pynsent told me. She said you had some samples at home. I should like to see them.”
“You wouldn’t know how good they are,” said Hyacinth, smiling.
He expected that she would exclaim, in answer, that he was an impudent wretch, and for a moment she seemed to be on the point of doing so. But the words changed on her lips, and she replied, almost tenderly, “That’s just the way you used to speak to me, years ago in the Plice.”
“I don’t care about that. I hate all that time.”