"What have you to do with mild fancies? Why, you can have the world at
your feet with a little exertion. Haven't you any ambition? Don't you
even want to plead in the greatest law court in the world as one of the
first barristers in Europe?"

"Not particularly. Why should I? It would be no end of a fag. I'd
far rather be left alone."

"You... you... sluggard,' breaking into a laugh. "If I were Fate, I'd
just take you by the shoulders and shake you till you woke up. Then
I'd go on shaking to keep you awake. You shouldn't be wasted on mere
nonentity if I held the threads."

But his blue eyes only smiled whimsically back at her.

"I'm jolly glad you haven't a say in the matter. Why, I should have to
give up cricket, and take to working! You're as bad as Quin with his
slumming, and Dick with his rotten verses."

"You don't know yet that I haven't a say in the matter," she remarked
daringly. "Have a cigarette. I'm awfully sorry I didn't remember
sooner."

"Indeed, you ought to be," was the gay rejoinder. "I've been just
dying for the moment when you would remember."

An electric bell rang out as they were lighting their cigarettes, and a
moment later Hal danced into the room with shining eyes and glowing
cheeks. A few paces from the door she stopped suddenly.