“And you do not read much in the city?” Margaret asked, with an answering smile.
“Yes; in the summer. That is, some do. There is a reading set. I don't know that they read much, but there is a reading set. You know, Miss Debree, that when a book is published—really published, as Mr. Henderson says—you don't need to read it. Somehow it gets into the air and becomes common property. Everybody hears the whole thing. You can talk about it from a notice. Of course there are some novels that one must read in order to understand human nature. Do you read French?”
“Yes; but not many French novels; I cannot.”
“Nor can I,” said Carmen, with a sincere face. “They are too realistic for me.” She was at the moment running over in her mind a “situation” in a paper-covered novel turned down on her nightstand. “Mr. Henderson says that everybody condemns the French novels, and that people praise the novels they don't read.”
“You know Mr. Henderson very well?”
“Yes; we've known him a long time. He is the only man I'm afraid of.”
“Afraid of?”
“Well, you know he is a sort of Club man; that style of man provokes your curiosity, for you never can tell how much such men know. It makes you a little uneasy.”
Carmen was looking into the fire, as if abstractedly reflecting upon the nature of men in general, but she did not fail to notice a slight expression of pain on Margaret's face.
“But there is your Mr. Lyon—”