“Jimmy! No. He plays football, and eats cold roast beef and cheese for lunch.”
“Do tell me—how does one do it?”
She seemed intensely interested, and was merrily munching an apple grown in one of her own orchards.
Claude raised his dark eyebrows.
“I beg your pardon?”
“How does one become a decadent? I have heard so much about you all, about your cleverness, and your clothes, and the things you write, and draw, and smoke, and think, and—and eat—”
She seemed suddenly struck by a bright idea.
“Oh, Mr Melville!” she exclaimed, leaning forward behind the great silver urn, and darting at him a glance of imploring earnestness, “will you do me a favour? We are left to ourselves for a whole week. Teach me, teach me to be a decadent.”
“But I thought you were going to teach me to be yo—” Claude began, and stopped just in time. “I mean—er—”
He paused, and they gazed at each other. There was meditation in the boy's eyes. He was wondering seriously whether it would be possible for an elderly spinster lady, of countrified morals and rural procedure, to be decadent. She was rather stout, too, and appeared painfully healthy.