He took a couple of leisurely strides and came up again beside her.
“No—I have my ‘notes’ and a pencil—simple things, but they suffice! And you can leave me the newspaper—its news is false, its English detestable and its self-advertisement appalling—like all the rest of its class—but a printed Ananias always amuses me—I only regret it does not fall dead like its mythical prototype!”
She had been holding the newspaper in one hand—she now gave it him with a little wistful upward glance that somehow hurt him and made him feel uncomfortable. He realised that his ‘philosophy’ had cast a yellow fog on the sunny brightness of her day. He took her hand, looked at its dimpled whiteness critically and then gravely kissed it.
“Cheer up!” he said. “It’s a nice little world—and—you’ve got a pretty little hand! It makes life worth living—or it ought to!—for you. And also for me.”
She laughed softly.
“Oh, how absurd you are!” she said. “I don’t think you mean half you say!”
“Probably not!” he answered, mildly. “It is a very abstruse problem for a man to find out exactly what he means. I doubt if any man has ever done it—not even old Socrates. And I’m not Socrates—”
“No, indeed!” she interrupted him. “You are—you are—”
“Diogenes?” he suggested.