"'It was the nightingale, and not the lark,'" suggested Colville lazily.
"Oh, don't you think Romeo and Juliet is divine?" demanded Imogene, promptly dropping the question of the bird.
"I don't know about Romeo," returned Colville, "but it's sometimes occurred to me that Juliet was rather forth-putting."
"You know she wasn't. It's my favourite play. I could go every night. It's perfectly amazing to me that they can play anything else."
"You would like it five hundred nights in the year, like Hazel Kirke? That would be a good deal of Romeo, not to say Juliet."
"They ought to do it out of respect to Shakespeare. Don't you like Shakespeare?"
"Well, I've seen the time when I preferred Alexander Smith," said Colville evasively.
"Alexander Smith? Who in the world is Alexander Smith?"
"How recent you are! Alexander Smith was an immortal who flourished about the year 1850."
"That was before I was born. How could I remember him? But I don't feel so very recent for all that."