He stammered out a reply:
“I—I d-don’t know. You see I—I haven’t quite got to father’s point of view. I mean to say I never thought of marrying at all. It wasn’t exactly beyond my horizon, but——!” He broke off, raising troubled eyes to her.
She handled him with extreme delicacy and patience.
“I understand perfectly. Young men of your type don’t think of marriage till—till love imposes the thought of it on them. But is it possible, Lionel, that you have never been in love?”
“Never—in the sense you mean.”
“Really? What a sensation to come! But—how shall I put it?—wouldn’t you like to be? Every girl worth her salt thinks of a possible husband—generally a quite impossible man. Have you never thought of a possible wife?”
“In the abstract—yes. Are you pulling my leg, Margot?”
“Heaven forbid! I am nearly, not quite, as solemn as you are.”
But she laughed gaily, contradicting her own words. Her laughter was so infectious that Lionel laughed with her. The ice between them broke and drifted away. He chuckled, like his father.
“I say, you must think me a mug.”