'What do you think I'm going to call it?' he had demanded of her once, gleefully.
'I don't know,' she said.
'Red and Black,' he told her. 'Isn't that a fine title?'
'Yes,' she said. 'But it's been used before;' and she gave him particulars of Stendhal's novel, of which he had never heard.
'Oh, well!' he exclaimed, somewhat dashed. 'As Stendhal was a Frenchman, and his book doesn't deal with gambling at all, I think I may stick to my title. I thought of it myself, you know.'
'Oh yes, dearest. I know you did,' Geraldine said eagerly.
'You think I'd better alter it?'
Geraldine glanced at the floor. 'You see,' she murmured, 'Stendhal was a really great writer.'
He started, shocked. She had spoken in such a way that he could not be sure whether she meant, 'Stendhal was a really great writer,' or, 'Stendhal was a really great writer.' If the former, he did not mind, much. But if the latter—well, he thought uncomfortably of what Tom had said to him in the train. And he perceived again, and more clearly than ever before, that there was something in Geraldine which baffled him—something which he could not penetrate, and never would penetrate.