“How absurd! Why, you are over forty.”
“Just so. That makes it more practical. I wanted you to realise how things stand, and to tell you that I am capable of a higher sort of affection than most people indulge in. You have nothing to fear.”
She wriggled her shoulders.
“I don’t feel alarmed, James, in the least. I know you would never do common, vulgar things. You always were eccentric. I suppose this is like discovering a new rose. It is really funny. I only ask you not to make a fool of yourself in public.”
He looked at her steadily and with a kind of compassion.
“My dear Gertrude, that is the very point I want to impress upon you. I am grimly determined that no one shall be made a fool of, least of all you. Treat this as absolutely between ourselves.”
She wriggled and poked her chin at him.
“Oh, you big, eccentric creature! Falling in love! Somehow, it is so quaint, that it doesn’t make me jealous. I suppose I have so many real and absorbing interests that I am rather above such things. But I do hope you won’t make yourself ridiculous.”
“I can promise you that. We are to be good friends and fellow-workers. Only I wanted you to understand.”
“Of course I understand. I’m such a busy woman, James, and my life is so full, that I really haven’t time to be sentimental. I have heard that most middle-aged men get fond of school-girls in a fatherly kind of way.”