“She said she thought she wasn’t genuine.”
“That’s not quite true. Miss Wrexham is nearly always what you want her to be, but she doesn’t seem to me to forfeit her genuineness. She is the most adaptable person I ever saw. To me she praises the Parthenon, to Manvers La Dame qui s’amuse. But to any one who doesn’t know her well, that must appear like want of genuineness.”
Tom rose and walked up and down the room.
“I am getting terribly bourgeois in my tastes, Manvers would tell me. I care for nothing now but loyalty and honesty and genuineness and quiet country life.”
Markham stared.
“My dear Tom, you really shouldn’t give me such surprises. What has happened to the bustle and stir of the world, and statuettes bowling cricket-balls?”
“I don’t know. It was a phase, I suppose. One can’t reach one’s proper development except through phases. Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees; Augustine was a debauchee, a sensualist with the shroud round his feet.”
“Paul, Augustine,” said Ted, with a smile; “let us continue the list. What about you?”
Tom paused.
“I don’t know. I only know I have changed, that something very big has happened to me. Perhaps some time you will know what it is. I’m going to bed, Teddy.”