"I hope so. A few men do, I think."
"As I have no pretensions to being a man, you cannot be surprised that my veracity is not my strongest point."
"You are only joking" (looking at her with uneasy intentness). "Please reassure me, by saying that you do not tell any greater number of fibs than every one is compelled to contribute towards the carrying on of society."
"Perhaps I do, and perhaps I do not."
He looks only half-satisfied with this oracular evasion; but does not press the point farther.
"It is not often that my papa and I take the air together; we think we have almost enough of each other's society in-doors."
"He is your father," says Esther, rather snappishly; a little out of humour with him for having put her out of conceit with herself.
"I never could see what claim to respect that was," answers he, gravely; "on the contrary I think that one's parents ought to apologise to one for bringing one, without asking one's leave, into such a disagreeable place as this world is."
"Disagreeable!" cries Esther, turning her eyes, broad open, in childish wonder upon him. "Disagreeable to you! Young and——"
"Beautiful, were you going to say?"