"One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not
choose one's way. You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can
appreciate Mrs. Travers' wit, and find my neighbor, who has done
Europe, attractive. That is a matter of disposition."
"I should like," Aynesworth remarked, "to have known you fifteen years
ago."
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
"I fancy," he said, "that I was a fairly average person--I mean that I
was possessed of an average share of the humanities. I have only my
memory to go by. I am one of those fortunate persons, you see, who
have realized an actual reincarnation. I have the advantage of having
looked out upon life from two different sets of windows.--By the bye,
Aynesworth, have you noticed that unwholesome-looking youth in a serge
suit there?"
Aynesworth nodded.
"What about him?"
"I fancy that he must know--my history. He sits all day long smoking
bad cigarettes and watching me. He makes clumsy attempts to enter into
conversation with me. He is interested in us for some reason or
other."
Aynesworth nodded.
"Shocking young bounder," he remarked. "I've noticed him myself."
"Talk to him some time, and find out what he means by it," Wingrave
said. "I don't want to find my biography in the American newspapers.
It might interfere with my operations there. Here's this woman coming
to worry us! You take her off, Aynesworth! I shall go into the smoking
room.
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