"As model and critic," she repeated, brightly. "Do you know," she added, mounting the stand, "I found 'Manon Lescaut' on a bookshelf this morning. I didn't know that it was a French book. I am going to read it this evening."
I was struck dumb. This possibility had never presented itself to me.
"I shall find the scene you have painted," she continued, looking down at her gown and patting a fold into place; "I shall see whether you have illustrated it conscientiously."
"The book wouldn't interest you at all! Not at all!" I burst out, conscious of a feverish intensity in the gaze I bent upon her. "It is—it is decidedly dull!"
"Is it?" said Miss Jones, indifferently. "Now I can't quite believe that. You evidently didn't think it too dull to illustrate. There must be some nice bits in it, and I mean to find the bit where the heroine, in a pink silk gown, looks at herself in a mirror."
"Well, you'll find no such bit. I haven't illustrated it!" I strove to keep my voice fairly cool. "I merely took the heroine's name as indicative of a class, and chose the epoch as characteristic. The book is dull, old-fashioned."
"Ah, but I might not agree with you there. Is it an historical novel? I like them, even if they are rather slow. One gets all sorts of ideas about people of another age."
"It isn't historical." Despite my efforts my voice was growing sharply anxious, and Miss Jones was beginning to notice my anxiety. "And the characters in it are not people you would care to have ideas about. It is merely one of the first attempts to write a psychological study, in the form of romance, made in France."
"Oh, but that is exceedingly interesting."
"You would only find the rather crude analysis of a—a disagreeable girl."