"Surely to be content is to be happy?"
"And are you so—very happy, Major d'Arcy?"
"I—think so! At the least, I'm content——"
"Is a man ever content?" she enquired, taking up one of his pens in idle fingers.
The Major fell to pondering this, watching her the while as, with the feather of the pen she began to touch and stroke her vivid lips and he noticed how full and gentle were their curves.
"He is a fool who strives for the impossible!" said he at last.
"Nay, he is a very man!" she retorted. "Are there many things impossible after all, to a man of sufficient determination, I wonder—or a woman?"
The Major, seating himself on a corner of the desk, pondered this also; and now the feather of the pen was caressing the dimple in her chin, and he noticed how firm this chin was for all its round softness.
"'Deed, sir," she went on again, "I feel as we had known each other all our days, I wonder why?"
The Major took up his tobacco-box that lay near by and turned it over and over before he answered and without looking at her: