She flushed more deeply yet, and drew herself up as if he were intruding upon unwarrantable matters.
"I don't even know who wrote the book," she replied.
"Then it is only the book itself that you admire, and not the author?"
"Of course it is the book. Haven't I said that I don't even know who the author is? I can't see," she went on somewhat irrelevantly, "why it is that as soon as there is anything that is worth praising you men begin to run it down."
He looked as if he were a trifle surprised at her warmth.
"Run it down?" he repeated. "Why, I am not running it down. I said that I admired the novel, didn't I?"
"But you said that you didn't think it was one of the best," she insisted.
"But you might allow a little for individual taste, Miss Calthorpe."
"Oh, of course there is a difference in individual tastes, but that has to do with the parts of the story that one likes best. It's nothing at all to do with whether one isn't willing to confess its merits."
He broke into a laugh of so much amusement that she contracted her level brows into a frown which made her prettier than ever.