She laughed. "How am I to begin?" she asked. "How will you?"
"I shall sit down," he said; "I feel I could be inconsequent much better if I sat down to it; that is no doubt because I am past my first youth."
"No," she said, sitting down and putting her hat beside her; "it is because your folly-muscles are stiff from want of use; you have played lots of things, I expect—it is part of your necessary equipment to be able to do so, but I doubt if you have ever played the fool systematically. I don't believe you have ever done, and certainly never enjoyed anything inconsequent or foolish in your life."
"If you were to ask me," he returned, "I should hardly say you excelled in that direction either. How many inconsequent and foolish things have you done in your life?"
"Some, and I should like to do some more. If I were alone now, do you know what I should do? You see that deep hollow of sparkling white sand? I should take off my clothes and lie there in the sun."
Rawson-Clew turned so that his back was that way. "Do not let me prevent you," he said.
Julia made use of the opportunity to empty the sand out of her boots.
He looked round as she was finishing fastening them. "But why put them on again?" he asked.
"Because I haven't retired from the world, yet," she answered, "and so I can't do quite all I like."
"When you do retire, will this ideal summer costume also be included in the programme? Your taste in dress grows simpler; quite ancient British, in fact."