"I sometimes long for a paradise of animals, some lovely pastoral valley with a silver stream winding through the deep grass, where I might live among beautiful innocent creatures—sheep, and deer, and Jersey cows, and great calm, cream-coloured oxen from the Campagna. Creatures that can lie in the sun and bask, knowing nothing of the past, feeling nothing but the warmth and beauty of the world; and where I myself should have lost the faculty of thought."
"That's a queer fancy."
"I have many queer fancies. They come to me in my dreams."
"You'd much better come to Goodwood. All the world will be there, and you'd like to see Iseult win. Haven't you enough frocks? Is that the reason for not coming?"
"I have too many frocks, some that I have never worn."
"Hansel them at Lady Waterbury's. You'll be the prettiest woman there."
"It's dear of you to say that"—her eyes clouded as she spoke—"but I can't go. I'm so tired of it all, Claude, so tired!"
"Do you suppose I am never tired of things? Sick, sick to death! but I know that to be happy one must keep moving. That's a law of human life. You'd better come, Vera. You'll be moped to extinction alone."
"I don't mind loneliness, and I shall have Susan part of the time, and there will be a meeting in the Albany."