“No, indeed, they enjoy it,” said Caerleon, “and that is just why I hate it. Can’t you see that your brother and mine think it a good joke to stir you up to say rude things, just for the pleasure of hearing you apologise with a jerk the next minute?”
“Yes, I see it,” she answered; “but that makes it all the better discipline for me.”
“Not for me,” said Caerleon. “I think your system ought to take some account of other people’s feelings.”
“But surely,” she said, “if I give pleasure to my brother and yours by acting in this way, I am considering other people’s feelings in doing it?”
Her voice as she asked the question was not particularly cheerful, but Caerleon treasured up the remark in his memory as the first approach to a joke that he had ever heard Nadia utter.
“Wouldn’t it be equally good discipline,” he said, “to stop before saying the rude things, and try to say something pleasant instead?”
“But that would not be true.” Nadia regarded him with absolute horror. “Come what may, I must be true.”
“It’s rather presumptuous of me to quote texts to you,” said Caerleon, “but isn’t there something about ‘speaking the truth in love’?”
“Why should it be presumptuous of you to quote texts to me?” she asked, quickly.
“Well, you see,” he answered, with some hesitation, “I don’t live by rule, as you do. I haven’t a system of self-discipline, or anything of that sort.”