'I am. Why?'
'I saw in yesterday's paper that your doctor had ordered you to go abroad for the rest of the winter.'
'My doctor received the two guineas, and I wrote the prescription,' returned Dick. 'Do you remember that I explained to you the other day at length my intention of retiring into private life?'
'I do. I strongly disapprove of it.'
'Well, I was convinced that if I relinquished my duties without any excuse people would say I was mad and shut me up in a lunatic asylum. I invented a breakdown in my health, and everything is plain sailing. I've got a pair for the rest of the session, and at the general election the excellent Robert Boulger will step into my unworthy shoes.'
'And supposing you regret the step you've taken?'
'In my youth I imagined, with the romantic fervour of my age, that in life everything was irreparable. That is a delusion. One of the greatest advantages of life is that hardly anything is. One can make ever so many fresh starts. The average man lives long enough for a good many experiments, and it's they that give life its savour.'
'I don't approve of this flippant way you talk of life,' said Mrs. Crowley severely. 'It seems to me something infinitely serious and complicated.'
'That is an illusion of moralists. As a matter of fact, it's merely what you make it. Mine is quite light and simple.'
Mrs. Crowley looked at Dick reflectively.