§ 5
Her opinion of George went up somewhat after the receipt of this letter. She was immensely struck by its absurdity, yet she had to admit that in addition to being a joke it was quite a clever joke. For several weeks she did not mention the affair, and he too avoided all reference to it. Then she began again to be annoyed at his silence. Besides, she was immensely curious to know what his attitude would be. The full flavour of the joke had yet to be tasted.
An incident—trivial in itself—lowered her opinion of him incalculably.
She had gone for her usual weekly lesson from Verreker. It was springtime, and “Claremont” was being painted, both inside and out. The music-room in which she took her lessons was crowded with furniture from other rooms, and for the first time she saw the evidences of Verreker’s labours apart from the world of music. Large book-cases had been dumped anyhow against the walls, and tables littered with papers filled up the usually spacious centre of the room. The piano had been pulled into a corner. She had several minutes to wait, and spent the time perusing the titles on his bookshelves. There was a fairly large collection of modern novels, including most of the works of Wells, Bennett, Conrad, Hardy, Chesterton and others; complete sets of the works of Shaw and Ibsen, most of the plays of Galsworthy, Granville Barker and Henry Arthur Jones; and some hundreds of miscellaneous French novels. A complete bookcase was occupied by works on economics and economic history—she read the names of Cunningham, Ashley, Maitland, Vinogradoff, Seebohm and Money. Then there was a shelf entirely devoted to Government Blue-Book publications, Reports of Commissions, quarterly and monthly reviews, loose-leaf binders full to bursting with documents, and such like. It was a very impressive array. She was conscious of her own extreme ignorance. Scarcely anything that was here had she read. She was not particularly fond of reading....
On the table near his desk she saw a yellow-backed copy of Ibsen’s Ghosts....
One result of their frequent bickering was that their conversation had acquired a good deal of familiarity....
“Rather a muddle,” he commented, as she was preparing to go after the lesson. He waved a hand comprehensively round the room.
“You’ve a lot of books,” she said.
“Yes; and I read them.” (As much as to say: “If you had a lot of books you wouldn’t read them.” In other words, a purely gratuitous insult. But she ignored it.)
“Reading Ghosts?” she remarked, taking up the yellow-backed book from the table.
“Re-reading it,” he corrected.
Something erratic and perfectly incomprehensible prompted her next utterance.
“Absolute biological nightmare,” she said casually. (It was something she had once heard George say.)
He looked at her queerly.
“Have you read it?”
“No,” she said, and blushed. She knew his next question would be, “Then how do you know?” so she added: “I once heard somebody say that about it.” She plunged further in sheer desperation. “Don’t you think it’s rather a biological nightmare?” she persisted, with passionate eagerness, as much as to say: “Please don’t make a fool of me. Please let the matter pass this once.”
“I confess,” he replied coldly, “it never appeared to me in that, light.... But, of course ...”
(Truly he was a master of stately phrasing!)
Naturally she regarded it as George’s fault primarily. It was clear she had overestimated George’s critical faculties....