"You've too much of the artistic temperament for Buckingham Palace Road."
"I? I the artistic temperament?" He accepted the trite phrase as a useful enough symbol of what they both meant.
"Yes," she answered steadily. "A good deal of it."
"Then I come under Irene Kilnorton's censures?"
"Under a good many of them, yes."
Something in her manner again annoyed and piqued him. She was judging again, and judging him. But she was interesting him also. She spoke of him; she knew him well: and just now he was in some doubt about himself.
"I don't know what you mean," he said, seeking to draw her out.
"Oh, things carry you away; and you like it. You don't want to get to a comfortable place and stay there. I'm not saying anything you mind?"
"No. I don't think so, at least."
She glanced at him full for a moment as she said,