"Are you referring to this particular machine?"
"I am referring to all the machines of which that one's a type. They're going to repeat the performance of Puffing' Billy--produce a revolution. I wish you'd give me a ride."
"I was just thinking of going in."
"Put off going in for a few minutes--take me for a run."
She looked at the chauffeur, who was quick to take the hint. Presently they were bowling along between the hedgerows, she conscious that his eyes were paying more attention to her than she quite relished. A fact of which his words immediately gave evidence.
"You like it. This feeling of flight through the air, which you can command by touching a handle, supplies you with an evanescent interest in life which, in ordinary, everyday existence you find lacking."
"What do you mean?"
"Is it necessary that I should tell you? Do you wish me to?"
"Do you mean that, as a general rule, I don't take an interest in things?"
"Do you? At your age, in your position, you ought to take an interest in everything. But the impression you convey to my mind is that you don't, that you take an interest in nothing. You try to, sometimes, pretty hard. But you never quite succeed. I don't know why. You remind me, in some odd way, of the impersonal attitude of a spectator who looks on at something with which he never expects to have any personal concern."