"I think it is sweetly pretty," she said, a teardrop of vexation gathering on her eyelid. "If you haven't read it, why should you abuse it?"
"Oh, one can't read everything," he said. "But one gets to pick up enough about a book to know whether he cares to read it. Of course, I am aware it is about a little baby on board a ship that makes charming inarticulate orations and is worshipped by everybody, from the captain to the little stowaway, and is regarded by the sailors as the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, etc., and that there is a sensational description of a storm at sea—which is Clarke Russell and water, or rather Clarke Russell and more water."
"Ah, I see you're a cynic," said Ellaline. "I don't like cynics."
"No, indeed, I am not," he pleaded. "It is false, not true, sentiment I object to."
"And how do you know this is false sentiment?" she asked in honest indignation. "When you haven't read it?"
"What does it matter?" he murmured, overwhelmed by her sense of duty. She was evidently unaccustomed to the light flippancies of elegant conversation.
"Oh, nothing. To some people nothing matters. Will you promise to read the book if I lend it you?"
"Of course I will," he said, delighted at the establishment of so permanent a link. "Only I don't want to deprive you of it—I can wait till you have finished with it."
"I have finished. I have read it over and over again. Take it." She handed it to him. Their finger-tips met.
"I recant already," he said. "It must have something pure and good in it to take captive a soul like yours."