“You do it very well,” said Bernard, with admiration. “That was just like the woman in the black frills at Merton’s. You’d soon be as good as they are. Farquhar wasn’t volunteering, though; he was up farther north, where they get miasma.”
“Oh,” said Dolly, leaning her elbows on the bench and her chin on her clasped hands. “Do you like him, Bernie?”
“Not if he was rude to you; though I guess swells generally are cads, like in books.”
“He wasn’t exactly rude. He was primitive. I should say he was very strong, and rather wicked, and subtle; not like us. We’re quite simple, simplex, one-fold; we mean what we say and do what we mean, you and I.”
“I should hope so,” said Bernard, who was not troubled by uncertain ethics.
“Noel Farquhar doesn’t, then; I’m sure of it. He is very strong. He says he is stronger than you are.”
Bernard stretched out a brawny arm. “He’s six inches shorter, anyway. At that rate he’d have to be a Hercules to lick me.”
“I’d like you to wrestle with him. I’d like to see him thrown.”
“Hullo, Dolly!”
“And I mean to meet him again.”