``No--'' said Clay, but so slowly and with such consideration that Miss Langham laughed and held her head a little higher.
``Not sorry to meet you, but to meet you in such surroundings.''
``What fault do you find with my surroundings?''
``Well, these people,'' answered Clay, ``they are so foolish, so futile.You shouldn't be here.There must be something else better than this.You can't make me believe that you choose it.
In Europe you could have a salon, or you could influence statesmen.There surely must be something here for you to turn to as well.Something better than golf-sticks and salted almonds.''
``What do you know of me?'' said Miss Langham, steadily.``Only what you have read of me in impertinent paragraphs.How do you know I am fitted for anything else but just this? You never spoke with me before to-night.''
``That has nothing to do with it,'' said Clay, quickly.``Time is made for ordinary people.When people who amount to anything meet they don't have to waste months in finding each other out.
It is only the doubtful ones who have to be tested again and again.When I was a kid in the diamond mines in Kimberley, Ihave seen the experts pick out a perfect diamond from the heap at the first glance, and without a moment's hesitation.It was the cheap stones they spent most of the afternoon over.Suppose IHAVE only seen you to-night for the first time; suppose Ishall not see you again, which is quite likely, for I sail tomorrow for South America--what of that? I am just as sure of what you are as though I had known you for years.''