k me the most awful
fool----"

She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then--so am I about
a good many things--most of your things----"

"Look here, Miss Beaminster--I wish you'd help me about things I'm an
ass in. You can, you know--I'd be most awfully glad."

"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you
really care about?"

"The things? ... care about?"

"Yes--really----"

"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' and
fishin'--any old exercise--and comin' up to town for a buck every now
and again, and then goin' back and seein' no one, and my old place
and--oh! I don't know," he ended.

"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked and
didn't like?"

"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find me
out in a minute----"

"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought art
the thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, would
you say you cared about art more than anything?"

"No," he said slowly. "No--but sometimes, you see, pictures and music
and such do please me--like anything--I can't put into words, but I
might suddenly be in any old mood--for pictures, or your uncle's fans,
or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars--Why, there, you see I
just let it go on--the mood, I mean, till it's over----" Then he added
with a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'----"

"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax--just
pretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or like
Aunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from some
clever man and then uses it everywhere."

"I should never remember it--a phrase or anythin'--I never can remember
what a feller says----"

"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you
would--about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I
think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing
that matters is being straight. It is the only thing--if a person just
gives you what they've got--what _they've_ got, not what someone else is
supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like
soup--thick or clear--but they're only thick because they let them get
thick with other people's opinions--you don't mind all this?" she said,
suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored.

"It's most awfully interestin'," he said