She flung the fern leaf from her horrified.
"Ted! That's true! How could you say it?"
"Because, Helen dear, I think we'll have to find things out for ourselves as we go through life; I for one can't take them ready made."
She leaned forward, her chin in her hands, her elbows resting on her drawn-up knees.
"Yes—I was hashing over in my mind to give you as something original only the things I'd already heard—"
"That is my objection to philosophy—it is a hash of words," I said.
"Still, one does have to have an experimental creed to go on with—one to change and add to, but to keep one steadfast meanwhile."
"Yes," I said. "Mine is foolishly practical: be decent, play fair, and take the life of no living creature."
"You are inconsistent right at the start," she complained. "If you lived up to your creed you'd be a vegetarian."
"I admit the weakness in the armour, but I mean shooting and killing beasts and birds for the fun of it. Mosquitoes are excepted.