Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/245

THE IVORY TOWER of trying to persuade me that you can't stand on your feet?"

"It hasn't been to show you that I'm silly about life—which is what you've just been talking of. It has only been to show you that I'm silly about affairs," Gray said as they went at last through the big bedimmed hall to the house doors, which stood open to the warm summer night under the protection of the sufficient outward reaches.

"Well, what are affairs but life?" Vinty, at the top of the steps, sought to know.

"You'll make me feel, no doubt, how much they are—which would be very good for me. Only life isn't affairs—that's my subtle distinction," Gray went on.

"I'm not sure, I'm not sure!" said Horton while he looked at the stars.

"Oh rot—I am!" Gray happily declared; to which he the next moment added: "What it makes you contend for, you see, is the fact of my silliness."

"Well, what is that but the most splendid fact about you, you jolly old sage?" and his visitor, getting off, fairly sprang into the shade of the shrubberies. 231