"It's always the other sort of nothing with me," said Arthur Naseby. "And what I like really best of all is the pantomime. You find in the pantomime exactly what you take there. I take there an invincible gaiety. That is why I find it there."
"That's what I mean," said Marie. "It is the case with everything. I love the pantomime, like you. Everything takes place without the slightest reason. It is so like life; and, like the clowns, we belabour each other with bladders and throw mud at butter belonging to other people. But the audience--the part of it like Mr. Naseby and me--are enormously amused."
"You are horribly unjust, Marie," said Lady Devereux in her sleepy, drawling voice. "We never belabour you. You are a privileged person; you go flying over hedges and ditches, while if I, for instance, as much as look over a hedge, I am supposed to be there for no good purpose. Is it the consciousness of innocence that gives you such license! One can acquire almost anything by practice. I think I shall set about that."
"I would, dear. Be innocent for an hour a day, to begin with, and increase it by degrees."
"Ah, it's not innocence, but the consciousness of it, I want," said Blanche. "It is a different matter."
"But it leads to absolutely nothing," said Arthur Naseby, in a discontented voice, "except, perhaps, promotion in the Church; but I have given up all real thought of that."
"I thought the real way to get on in the Church now was to preach heretical doctrine," remarked Lady Devereux. "Our parson at Rye always casts doubt on things like Jonah and the whale, or tries to explain them by supposing it was not a whale, but an extinct animal with an enormous gullet, which seems to me just as remarkable. They tell me he is certain to be made a Bishop. My grandfather was a Bishop."
"And mine was a draper," said Arthur Naseby. "I am thankful every day that he was such a successful one. Really, nothing matters nowadays except money. That is so convenient for the people who have some. Here is a most convenient person, for instance, just coming."
Jim Spencer entered the tent with the air of looking for somebody. He also had the air of having found somebody when he saw Marie, and sat down in a low chair by her.
