"They are so funny," said Phillis, laughing. "They sleep all day, and when they wake up they pretend to have been working. And they sit up all night. And, O Agatha! each one came to me just now, and told me he had a secret to impart to me."
"What was that, my dear?"
"That the other one adored me, and might he hope?"
"But, Phillis, this is beyond a joke. And actually here, before my very eyes!"
"I said they might both hope. Though I don't know what they are to hope. It seems to me that if those two lazy men, who never do anything but pretend to be exhausted with work, were only to hope for anything at all it might wake them up a little. And they each said that the other would bring me a virgin heart, Agatha. What did they mean?"
Agatha laughed.
"Well, my dear, it is a most uncommon thing to find in a man of fifty, and I should say, if it were true, which I don't believe, that it argued extreme insensibility. Such an offering is desirable at five-and-twenty, but very, very rare, my dear at any age. And at their time of life I should think that it was like an apple in May—kept too long, Phillis, and tasting of the straw. But then you don't understand."
Phillis thought that a virgin heart might be one of the things to be understood when the Coping-stone was achieved, and asked no more.
At the Richmond railway-station the brothers, who had not spoken a word to each other since leaving the house, turned into the refreshment-room by common consent and without consultation. They had, as usual, a brandy-and-soda, and on taking the glasses in their hands they looked at each other and smiled.
"Cornelius."