You know what I mean,
don't you--black drawing-rooms, futurist wall-papers, opium dens
and a cocaine box! It's to some extent affectation, of course,
but it's a folly that claims its victims."
She studied him for a moment attentively. His leanness was the
leanness of muscular strength and condition, his face was full of
vigour and determination.
"You at least have escaped the abnormal," she remarked. "I am
not quite sure how the entertainments at The Walled House would
appeal to you, but if my father should invite you there, I should
advise you not to go."
"Why not?" he asked.
She hesitated for a moment.
"I really don't know why I should trouble to give you advice,"
she said. "As a matter of fact, I don't care whether you go or
not. In any case, you are scarcely likely to be asked."
"I am not sure that I agree with you," he protested. "Your
father seems to have taken quite a fancy to me."
"And you?" she murmured.
"Well, I like the way he bought that horse," Francis admitted.
"And I am beginning to realise that there may be something in the
theory which he advanced when he invited me to accompany him here
this evening--that there is a certain piquancy in one's
intercourse with an enemy, which friendship lacks. There may be
complexities in his character which as yet I have not
appreciated.
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