"I looked through it. I had nothing to do."
"Quite amusing?" she said. "Wasn't it?"
"I forget," he murmured; "I never do remember these things."
"It took a clever man some time to write," said Kent; "it might have been worth your attention for a whole afternoon."
Cæsar was not disturbed. Neither his confidence nor his amiability was shaken.
"Do you think so?" he said with gentleness. "I can't read these things any more. There's nothing to be gained. What does one acquire? Whether Angelina marries Edwin, or whether she marries Charles——!" He shook his head and smiled compassionately. Sam Walford guffawed. "When I feel that my mind's been at too great a tension, I sometimes glance at a novel; but I'm afraid—I'm really afraid—I can't concede that I should be justified in giving up an afternoon to one."
"Cæsar has his work to think of, you know," put in Cynthia; "he's not like us women."
"You'll find it a tough job to get the best of Cæsar in an argument," proclaimed Walford boisterously.
"Oh, I don't deny that I have read novels in my time. There was a time when I could read a yellow-back." He made this admission in the evident belief that a book was more frivolous in cardboard covers than in the cloth of its first edition. "But I can't do it to-day."
"Well," cried Mrs. Walford, "I must say I agree with Humphrey; I must say I think it's very clever to write a good novel—I do really! I couldn't write one; I'm sure I couldn't—I haven't the patience."