Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/24

14 "Oh, you do say such dreadful things," she almost moaned, "and I never can answer them. At least my answer only is that I am utterly different. Often you say the things that I only think, but sometimes you say things that I couldn't think."

"You mean I have a coarse and indelicate nature?" demanded Lucia.

"Yes, darling, just that; but it's only a tiny wee bit of you, you know."

"There again you are wrong," said Lucia. "I am altogether like that. And altogether, do you know, it is close on one o'clock. Not that it matters; it is so silly to mind what the time is. Watches are a sort of Frankenstein monster: men invented them, and then are haunted and shadowed by them."

But Maud got up.

"Nearly one," she said, "and I promised mother I would be in bed by twelve."

"You've broken it, then," said Lucia, "so let's go on talking."

"No, we really mustn't. Oh, dear, I wish you weren't going away to-morrow."

"You can't wish it more than I do. Oh, Maud, how strange you are! You think it more important to go to bed at one because you promised to do so at twelve, than to sit up and talk to your poor friend who goes to—well, purgatory by the 11.45 to-morrow! Especially when this violently exciting thing has happened to you, which I want so dreadfully to talk about. Gracious me, if ever I fall in love with anybody, you shan't be allowed to go to bed for a week."

"But I've got nothing to say," said Maud, "it's so strange. I don't know what it feels like yet; I can only feel."

Lucia looked sternly at her friend.

"I insist on hearing the symptoms," she said, "for future guidance. Do you want to be with him on a moonlight night and write poetry? Is it that sort?"

"No; it sounds delightful, but I don't think it's that sort," said Maud.

"Do you want to change hats with him?" asked Lucia inexorably.

Maud laughed.

"Don't be horrid," she said. "Oh, Lucia, your hair! Let me put the candles out and see it sparkle for a minute."

"Do you want to brush his hair?" continued Lucia. "Tell me about him, anyhow. Is he rich? Is he serious or flippant? Serious, I hope; a flippant husband would never do. Is he