“Yes, dozens of times,” said Mifflin.
“What do you mean?”
“You were just going to ask me if I had ever been in love, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, because I know you haven’t. You have no soul. You don’t know what love is.”
“Have it your own way,” said Mifflin resignedly.
Jimmy bumped back on to the sofa.
“I don’t either,” he said. “That’s the trouble.”
Mifflin looked interested.
“I know,” he said. “You’ve got that strange premonitory fluttering, when the heart seems to thrill within you like some baby bird singing its first song, when——”
“Oh, shut up!”