Stella smiled.
“Oh, don’t rub it in,” she said. “Yes, it is idiotic.”
“My dear, you are so gentle that I feel a brute!”
“Please be a brute, then, just five minutes more,” said Stella.
“Very good. Do not take up this absurd position and say, ‘I am your goddess, what incense have you got to burn before me this morning? Ah, that is the second-quality incense! I thought so. How could you?’ Be much bigger than that. Suez! Recollect who it is who has paid you this incomparable compliment of saying he wishes to see your face opposite him at breakfast for the rest of his life, every day, every day. Go to Karl Rusoff and ask him where he places Martin, if you do not believe me about his genius. And when he has told you, hire the Albert Hall, fill it with people, and tell them what Karl says. Then wait a couple of years, hire the Albert Hall again, and repeat again what Karl told you. And every single person in the hall will say, ‘Why, of course. We knew that.’”
Stella was silent a moment.
“Then, must I burn incense before him?” she asked. “The very best incense. I should love to do that!”
Lady Sunningdale restrained a movement of impatience.
“My dear, you are the one person in the world who must not burn incense,” she said. “An incense-burning wife is like dram-drinking to a man. You are to be his wife. That means a good deal. But you are to be his comrade. That means much more. He and Helen! Why he did not get Helen to come and live with him, and—well, not marry at all, I don’t know. Perhaps Frank would object. Men are all so selfish.”
“Do you mean he has chosen badly?” asked Stella.