“On the contrary,” I began, “I—­”

“And wet, Peter—­miserably wet and clammy!”

“I did not notice it,” I murmured.

“Being a philosopher, Peter, and too much engrossed in your thoughts?”

“I was certainly thinking.”

“Of yourself!”

“Yes—­”

“You are a great egoist, aren’t you, Peter?”

“Am I, Charmian?”

“Who but an egoist could stand with his mind so full of himself and his own concerns as to be oblivious to thunder and lightning, and not know that he is miserably clammy and wet?”

“I thought of others besides myself.”

“But only in connection with yourself; everything you have ever read or seen you apply to yourself, to make that self more worthy in Mr. Vibart’s eyes.  Is this worthy of Peter Vibart?  Can Peter Vibart do this, that, or the other, and still retain the respect of Peter Vibart?  Then why, being in all things so very correct and precise, why is Peter Vibart given to prowling abroad at midnight, quite oblivious to thunder, lightning, wet and clamminess?  I answer:  Because Peter Vibart is too much engrossed by—­Peter Vibart.  There! that sounds rather cryptic and very full of Peter Vibart; but that is as it should be,” and she laughed.

“And what does it mean, Charmian?”

“Good sir, the sibyl hath spoken!  Find her meaning for yourself.”

“You have called me, on various occasions, a ‘creature,’ a ’pedant’—­very frequently a ‘pedant,’ and now, it seems I am an ‘egoist,’ and all because—­”

“Because you think too much, Peter; you never open your lips without having first thought out just what you are going to say; you never do anything without having laboriously mapped it all out beforehand, that you may not outrage Peter Vibart’s tranquillity by any impulsive act or speech.  Oh! you are always thinking and thinking—­and that is even worse than stirring, and stirring at your tea, as you are doing now.”  I took the spoon hastily from my cup, and laid it as far out of reach as possible.  “If ever you should write the book you once spoke of, it would be just the very sort of book that I should—­hate.”

“Why, Charmian?”

“Because it would be a book of artfully turned phrases; a book in which all the characters, especially women, would think and speak and act by rote and rule—­as according to Mr. Peter Vibart; it would be a scholarly book, of elaborate finish and care of detail, with no irregularities of style or anything else to break the monotonous harmony of the whole—­indeed, sir, it would be a most unreadable book!”

“Do you think so, Charmian?” said I, once more taking up the teaspoon.

“Why, of course!” she answered, with raised brows; “it would probably be full of Greek and Latin quotations!  And you would polish and rewrite it until you had polished every vestige of life and spontaneity out of it, as you do out of yourself, with your thinking and thinking.”