“You have a visitor this afternoon?”
“Only Jack,” she replied.
“Jack seems a good deal about here,” remarked the Philosopher, airily.
“Yes,” she said, with gentle unconcern. “Quite harmless, I assure you!”
He laughed despite himself. There was something quaint in the accent of her voice.
“He’s a sentimental sort of boy,” she went on. “He’s very fond of gardening, and he attaches the greatest possible importance to trifles. For instance, I gave him a rose a week ago and he tells me he has pressed it in a book of favourite poems so that he may keep it for ever.”
“Young noodle!” growled the Philosopher. “Spoiling the book with messy crushed petals which are sure to stain it. I wouldn’t do such a thing for the world.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” she agreed, calmly.
He glanced at “The Natural Evolution and Decay of Nations,” marked the place where he had been reading, and shut it up.
“You know you like all that sort of thing,” he said, settling himself in his chair ready for an argument. “Has he gone?”