"And you wouldn't rather go on living quietly at Nunsmere and not bother about me any more? Do tell me the truth."
Septimus's hand went to his hair. He was unversed in the ways of women.
"I thought all that was settled long ago," he said. "I'm such a useless creature. You give me something to think about, and the boy, and his education, and his teeth. And he'll have whooping cough and measles and breeches and things, and it will be frightfully interesting."
Emmy, elbow on table and chin in hand, smiled at him with a touch of audacity in her forget-me-not eyes.
"I believe you're more interested in the boy than you are in me."
Septimus reddened and stammered, unable, as usual, to express his feelings. He kept to the question of interest.
"It's so different," said he. "I look on the boy as a kind of invention."
She persisted. "And what am I?"
He had one of his luminous inspirations.
"You," said he, "are a discovery."