“Of course.” Anita resumed the reins. “It’s as old as The Vicar of Wakefield.”
“Oh, that!” The Baxter girl looked interested. “Do you know, I’ve never seen it. One of Irving’s shows, wasn’t it?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. But they were all quite solemn, even Anita. But then she never did listen to the Baxter girl. She had talked straight through her sentences.
“But it’s not the material. It’s the way it’s handled. It’s never been done quite so thoroughly, from the woman’s point of view—so unadornedly. People are afraid of their ‘poor girls.’ There’s a formula that even the Immortals follow. They are all young and beautiful, and they all die. They must. They wouldn’t be tragic in continuation. But Madala’s woman doesn’t. That’s the point. There’s no pretence at making her a heroine. She’s just the ordinary stupidish sheep of a creature, ‘gone wrong.’ There’s no romantic halo, no love-glamour, no pity and terror, just the chronicle of a sordid life. And yet you can’t put the book down. At least I couldn’t put it down.”
“Do you like it?” I said to Kent Rehan, as he paused beside me in his eternal pacing from room to room.
He looked at me oddly.
“I respect it,” he said. “I don’t like it. People misjudged——”
“If it had been the recognized love story”—Mr. Flood’s high voice silenced him—“the regularized irregularity, so to speak, it wouldn’t have been banned. It was the absence of a love story that the British public couldn’t forgive. It was cheated. It was shocked.”
“But there is a love story at the beginning, isn’t there?” I said. “I haven’t read far.”
Instantly the Baxter girl exhibited me—