"Building behemoths for billionaires?"
"Yes."
"And the rest of the time?"
"Rather drearily going about."
She surveyed him with wicked innocence.
"Why don't you fall in love?" she suggested.
His expression remained unmoved. "It is so difficult," he retorted, "to
find the proper subject. A man of my experience frightens the
inexperienced: the experienced frighten me."
"You mean--?"
"That I have reached the age where the innocence no longer possible to
me seems the only thing worth while."
Mrs. Ennis wrinkled her nose daintily. "Nonsense!" she observed, and
helped herself to the dish the servant was holding out to her. "What you
have said," she resumed, "is the last word of the sentimentalist. If I
thought you really meant it, I would know at once that you were very
cold and very cruel and rather silly."
"Thanks!"
"Oh, I'm talking more or less abstractly."
"Well, possibly I am all of those things."
"But you want me to be personal?"
Pollen laughed. "Of course! Doesn't everybody want _you_ to be
personal?"
For an instant Mrs. Ennis looked again at Burnaby and Mary Rochefort,
and a slightly rueful smile stirred in her eyes. It was amusing that
she, who detested large dinners and adored general conversation, should
at the moment be so engrossed in preventing the very type of
conversation she preferred.
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