“No, no. I didn’t mean that sort of parody. Madala may have had her emotions, but she’d always be good-tempered about them. She’s laughing at herself in The Resting-place as well as at us.”
“But why do you cavil at it so?” said the Baxter girl slowly.
“Only at its plain meaning. Grant the parody and——”
“But why can’t you just read it as it stands? Why do you say sentimental? I—I liked it.”
Anita took the book from her hand.
“But, my dear child, anybody can write this sort of thing. Where’s the passage the ladies’ papers rave about, where they have a day on the river together?” She whipped over the pages while I said to the Baxter girl—
“What is it? What’s it about? What’s the plot?”
“Oh, there isn’t any. That’s what they complain of. It’s just a little artist’s model who sits to an elderly, broken-down dreamer, and thinks him a god. The duke and door-mat touch. It’s just how two people fall in love and find it out. It’s as simple as A, B, C. But people ate it when it came out.”
“Treacle, I tell you,” insisted Mr. Flood.
Anita overheard him.