She laughed a little.
“You dear, good Jack! Nor can I!”
They were sitting on a smooth thyme-scented bank close to the river—a lovely river meandering slowly under pale green tresses of willow, and gurgling softly among reeds and water-lilies,—and it was a perfect summer’s afternoon. She,—always the sentimentalist,—had been for some minutes lost in a reverie—a kind of waking dream of delight in all the exquisite things of nature about her—the ripple of the water, the swirl of the swaying leaves above her head, and the delicious blue of the sky. She was herself an exquisite thing, but she did not realise it. That was left to Jack.
“Well, if you can’t,” he pursued, “why on earth do you humour him in all his whims and fads—”
“He’s a very learned man!” she interrupted, demurely. “Most frightfully learned! He knows every thing!—or he thinks he knows!”
“Oh! That’s another story!” said Jack. “He thinks he knows! I might ‘think’ I know!—but I shouldn’t know for all that! I hate a human encyclopædia!”
“Then, he’s a Philosopher,” she went on, her smile dimpling the corners of her mouth in the most enchanting way. “He is never put out—never excited—takes everything as it comes quite calmly—”
“Except when it happens to hurt himself,” exclaimed Jack. “Then he can roar like the Biblical bulls of Bashan! I’ve heard him! Oh, yes, I grant you he’s never put out by other folks’ worries—he wouldn’t stir a finger to help any one out of a fix—not even you! Can’t you see how utterly selfish the man is?”
She considered,—resting her chin in the hollow of her little white hand. She looked very pretty in that attitude, and Jack was glad he had her company all to himself.
“Yes,” she said, at last, “I suppose—I’m afraid he is! But, you see, Jack, that’s because he’s such a philosopher! They are mostly all like that. Think of Diogenes in his tub!”