"Few women ask for that, Scott; few care for it; fewer still understand it——"
"You would. I've got a cheek to ask you to marry me—me!—before I wear any tag to identify me except the dollar mark——"
"Oh, hush, Scott! You are talking utter nonsense; don't you know it?"
He made a large and rather grandiose gesture:
"Around me lies opportunity, Kathleen—every stone; every brook——"
The mischievous laughter of his listener checked him. She said: "I'm sorry; only it made me think of
'Sermons in stones,
Books in the running brooks,'
and the indignant gentleman who said: 'What damn nonsense! It's "sermons in books, stones in the running brooks!"' Do go on, Scott, dear, I don't mean to be frivolous; it is fine of you to wish for fame——"
"It isn't fame alone, although I wouldn't mind it if I deserved it. It's that I want to do just one thing that amounts to something. I wish you'd give me an idea, Kathleen, something useful in—say in entomology."
Together they walked back to the terrace. Duane had gone; Geraldine sat sideways on the parapet, her brown eyes fixed on the road along which her lover had departed.