[212]BLAYDS (apologetically). All right, Isobel. Mr. Royce won’t mind.
ISOBEL (smiling reluctantly). It’s very unkind.
BLAYDS. You never knew Whistler, Mr. Royce?
ROYCE. No, sir; he was a bit before my time.
BLAYDS. Ah, he was the one to say unkind things. But you forgave him because he had a way with him. And there was always the hope that when he had finished with you, he would say something still worse about one of your friends. (He chuckles to himself again.) I sent him a book of mine once—which one was it, Isobel?
ISOBEL. Helen.
BLAYDS. Helen, yes. I got a postcard from him a few days later: “Dear Oliver, rub it out and do it again.” Well, I happened to meet him the next day, and I said that I was sorry I couldn’t take his advice, as it was too late now to do anything about it. “Yes,”
said Jimmie, “as God said when he’d made Swinburne.”
ISOBEL. You’ve heard that, Mr. Royce?
ROYCE. No. Ought I to have?