“I object to nothing you wish to say,” she answered, gently.
“How charming of you! Ah!” and he sighed. “If that were always the case--if it were only true!”
He broke off. His heart was not given to inordinate fluttering, but he felt it distinctly fluttering just then. He waited a couple of minutes to recover himself. She had resumed her swift sewing, and her little gold thimble flashed to and fro like a tiny star. The logs in the bright fire crackled and sparkled,--one of them falling into a brilliant flame. He straightened himself in his chair, and, as it were, pulled himself together.
“Returning to the subject of your father’s important work,” he said, slowly, “I think it will soon be finished.”
“Really!” she exclaimed. “How glad I shall be!”
“Will you? Yes--I suppose you will! But--I shall be sorry!”
She paused in her sewing and looked at him kindly.
“It’s nice of you to say so,” she said. “For I’m sure you must have been tired of it often! And tired of us, too! We must seem so monotonous to a clever man like you!”
He considered this observation with a thoughtful air,--then smiled.
“No,” he averred, with an air of tolerance. “No. Strange to say, though I find most things monotonous I have not found _you_ so!” Here he laughed quite pleasantly. “Dear child, whatever your faults, sameness is not one of them! You are as variable--as--as an English summer!”
“Thanks ever so much!” she said. “I should hate to be always in one humour!”
“It would be dull--undoubtedly it would be dull!” admitted the Philosopher. “Safe certainly--but dull! Unalterable good temper,--what? It might be trying! After about a year of it, one might welcome a little flash--just a _leetle_ flash of anger!”
He paused. She said nothing. Presently he resumed.
“Yes--you are very variable! Yet--at the same time you are equable. That sounds very paradoxical, doesn’t it?”
“A paradox is that which though appearing to be contradictory is nevertheless true,” he continued, amicably. “And according to that definition I myself am a paradox.”
“I think so! I am very generally misunderstood. Even _you_ misunderstand me.”
She laid down her work and looked at him.
“Thank you! I do not suppose you can help yourself--all women judge by appearances. I am not an Adonis--never was,--and I’m getting old--and I confess to an irritability of temper occasionally--”