"And you're living in the year of grace nineteen-fifteen? It's only—What did we call it? A child's toy. And, between ourselves, it wasn't a very efficient paper-weight. I can assure you I shan't miss it."
"Perhaps you will some day. And then you'll lift up your hands and curse the hour when you first met me."
Eric looked complacently at the airy room, the crowded book-cases, the soft chairs, the bellying curtains and the neat pile of manuscript on his writing-table:
"Aren't you perhaps exaggerating your potential influence on my life?" he suggested.
Barbara went back to her sofa and helped herself to a cigarette without hurry or fear that this time it would be taken from her; she smiled for a match—and smiled again when it was given her.
"Aren't you perhaps boasting too soon, my self-satisfied young friend? Your education's only just beginning."
Eric lighted a cigarette and sat down beside her. He no longer insisted that, for health or propriety, she must go home at once; and in some forgotten moment he had involuntarily taken off his overcoat.
"I wonder what you think you can teach me," he mused. "I wonder what you know, to start with."
"I know life."
"A considerable subject."