"Do you disagree with his accounts?"
He laughed.
"Arithmetic's no good to me. I was a bit of a flier at Ananias and Dido at school, but I could add up a column every time and make it different. I ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer—eh, what? Surely, you don't mind?"
He nestled his head against her knees as though this kind of comfort were some solatium. Gabrielle was thinking of John Faber and of what his opinion would have been of such an admission.
"I suppose life isn't worth living unless you go to St. Moritz?"
He detected no irony.
"How's a man to keep fit in our beastly country?—then, there's habit. I believe in doing to-morrow what you did yesterday—don't you? If I stop in England, it's covered court tennis, nothing more! How's a man to go through the winter on covered court tennis?"
"The survival of the fittest. Whatever will become of you on the yacht?"
He puffed stolidly.
"That's vegetation. I can lie on my back with any man—I'm a plus two at it. A man's year should include a month of it. Then I'm orderly; I know just what I'm going to do during the next two seasons, as sure as the moon and stars: cricket, four months; two months' shooting; a bit of hunting if I can get it in, and if I can't, then some pat ball on the links. What more do you want?"