"Of course," she said promptly. "Pain is merely ignorance."
"Then you must admit," he said, "that there can be no pleasure."
She was puzzled. "How so?"
"Everything must have its foil. Good requires evil as its negative, or there is—nothing. So to feel pleasure one must postulate pain. Otherwise you are incapable of pleasure."
"Oh, but I'm not!" she said impulsively, and laughed.
"Then where are your science and your logic?"
"You mean I am a woman and illogical." She parried, evading the dilemma. "When you understand our true position you will realize how fallacious are your arguments. Now, what do you think of Pendennis?"
He laughed again, but talked Thackeray willingly enough. When, a few moments later, she idly plucked a rose and pricked her finger on a thorn, giving a little cry, he said humorously, "Ignorance, not pain!" She disdained to notice him, but smelt the rose luxuriously. "The illusion of pleasure?" he suggested, pressing the thrust home. Her eyes sparkled with indignation, but he smiled into them unafraid. They were getting on capitally, he felt, and it was pleasant to find Miss Arkwright so much of a woman. She would pay for flirtatious treatment, he thought villainously, reflecting what a shame it was that lips so alluring should be unkissed. Lionel, you may have observed, was an adaptable creature. Fickle? Surely not. He had mapped his course and was steering strictly according to compass. While Beatrice was still a grass-widow the more innocent paths of dalliance showed no warning board, "Trespassers will be Prosecuted." They were not applauded, it is true—and here he readily confessed his weakness,—but they were not forbidden. So why, in the strict execution of the charge laid upon him, may he not try to persuade Miss Arkwright to take a less frigid view of life? The reader, virtuous soul, may censure: I can only record. Yet, too, it was something in the nature of a drug to his conscience. When he had time to think (and he had plenty of time for that) he loathed the idea of being there under false pretenses, playing the spy. It was all very well arguing that it was for the sake of Beatrice, but it would have been an easier task if Winifred had not been so charming. She was too charming, but it had to be done.... Of course, he ought to have refused a hint of dalliance, but one step leads to another, and man is frail. Besides, it had not gone very far ... not far enough to hurt either him or her.
One mundane detail must be given in this chapter. The morning after his arrival he had written to London for a supply of clothes. For the credit of the Blair side of the family he felt that some of Beatrice's notes ought to be spent on an adequate wardrobe. They came the day after, giving color to the excuse that his valet had got drunk and pawned the contents of his flat two hours after his leaving London. Miss Arkwright did not seem to think it strange; anything might happen in that wicked city. But she considered the Homburg hat a little "too continental." This was before her education had begun in earnest.