“How is your bibliomaniac?” said the soldier, as the two were following on after a drive.
“Fairly frigid,” came the response.
“Has his magnificence favored you with a letter of late?”
“Not for ten days. You see, he is so much in demand as a genius.”
“Geniuses are dangerous folk—tar-barrels, dynamite. They need damping.”
They passed about the hem of a larch-wood where a thousand emerald points were shimmering in the sun. The gorse was ablaze on either side of the track. Down in the valley beneath them a lake flickered under the heavens, and they could catch the faint roar of the water as it foamed over the weir.
“I suppose your friends know all about it?” said the major, pulling the peak of his cap down to shade his eyes in the sun.
Ophelia glanced at his clean-shaven, jockey-like profile with critical approval.
“Not much.”
“Oh, but they ought to.”