She replied briefly, then, after hesitation, asked: 'Do you very much want to go to the Pilkingtons', father ?' He regarded her with amazement.
'I?
Since when have I had a passionate desire to camp in strangers' houses and eat strange flesh ?' 'Then you do _not_ greatly care about it--even for the sake of meeting Mr.Lanyard ?' 'Lanyard?
Great Heavens! The fellow has done some fine things, but spiritual converse with him is quite enough for me.' 'Then will you please to discover all at once that you are really not so well as you thought, and that, after your season's dancing and theatre-going, you feel obliged to get hack either to Eastbourne or Ullswater as soon as possible ?' 'The fact is, Bell, I haven't felt by any means up to the mark these last few days.' 'Dear father, don't say that! I am wrong to speak lightly of such things.' 'I only say it because you ask me to, sweet-and-twenty.

In truth I feel very comfortable, but I shall be far more sure of remaining so at Eastbourne than at the Pilkingtons'.' 'Eastbourne, you think ?' 'Nay, as you please, Bell.' 'Yes, Eastbourne again.' She came to her father and took his hands.
'I'm tired, tired, tired of it all, dear; tired and weary unutterably! If ever we come to London again, let us tell nobody, and take quiet rooms in some shabby quarter, and go to the National Gallery, and to the marbles at the Museum, and all places where we are sure of never meeting a soul who belongs to the fashionable world.

If we go to a concert, we'll sit in the gallery, among people who come because they really want to hear music--' '_Eheu_! The stairs are portentous, Bell!' 'Never mind the stairs! Nay then, we won't go to public concerts at all, but I will play for you and myself, beginning when we like, and leaving off when we like, and using imagination--thank goodness, we both have some!--to make up for the defects.

We'll go back to our books--oh! _you_ have never left them; but I, poor sinner that I am--! Give me my Dante, and let me feel him between my hands! Where is Virgil?
Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge litus avarum.
Is it quoted right?
Is it apropos ?' 'Savonarola's word of fate.' 'Then mine too! How have you been so patient with me?
A London season--and I still have Homer to read! Still have Sophocles for an unknown land! My father, I have gone far, very far, astray, and you did not so much as rebuke me.' 'My dearest, it is infinitely better to hear you rebuke yourself.

Nor that, either.