'I suppose you think I'm an awful idiot,' observed Mr. Lushington, with
unexpected and quite unnecessary energy.
'Dear me! This is so very sudden! Awful--idiot? Let me see.' Her absurd gravity was even more exasperating than her smile.
Lushington threw away his cigarette angrily.
'You know what I mean,' he cried, getting red again. 'Don't be horrid!' 'Then don't be silly,' retorted Margaret.
'There! I knew you thought so!' 'Perhaps I do, sometimes,' the girl answered, more seriously. 'But I
don't mind it at all. If you care to know, I think you are often much
more human when you are--well--"silly," than when you are being clever.
'And I suppose you would like me better if I were always silly?' Margaret shook her head and laughed softly, but said nothing. She was
thinking that it was good to be alive, and that it was the spring, and
that the life was stirring in her, as it stirred amongst the young
leaves overhead and in the shooting grasses and budding flowers, and in
the hearts of the nesting birds in the oaks and elms. Just then it
mattered very little to Margaret whether the man who was talking to her
made himself out to be silly or clever. She felt herself much nearer to
the simple breathing and growing of all nature than to the silliness or
cleverness of any fellow-creature.
Her lips parted a little and she drew in the air again and again,
slowly and quietly, as if she could drink it, and live on its sweet
taste, and never want food or other drink again, though she was not an
ethereal young person, but only a perfectly healthy and natural girl.
She was not tired, yet somehow she felt that she was resting body, soul
and heart, for a little while, after growing up and before beginning
what was to be her life.
Lushington was perfectly healthy, too, but he was not simple, and was
often not quite natural. He had real troubles and artificial ways of
treating them. He had also been in the thick of the big fight for
several years, he had tasted the wine of success and the vinegar of
failure, the sticky honey of flattery and some nasty little pills
prepared with malignant art by brother critics. With his faults and
weaknesses and absurd sensitiveness, he had in him the stuff that wins
battles with glory, or loses them with honour, promising to fight
again. He was complex. He was rarely quite sure what he felt, though he
could express with precision whatever he thought he was feeling at any
moment.