“Not at all!” said Wilfred quickly. “It’s because I can’t appear to take myself seriously, without feeling like a fool!”
“Oh!” she said, looking at him as if he had given her new food for reflection.
Wilfred felt like a specimen impaled on a pin.
“Tell me more about myself,” she said presently. “It’s refreshing!”
“I have so little to go on!” protested Wilfred.
“That didn’t seem to hamper you a while ago. Make it up as you go along.”
“You always do exactly what you please.”
She smiled inscrutably. “That isn’t very clever!”
Wilfred felt flattened out. “Well . . . you have entirely false notions about life,” he said, making a desperate fresh start.
“That’s better,” she said serenely. “In what way do you mean?”