Yes; perhaps they did, though I had never thought of it before.
“There’s one thing that puzzles me,” I went on; “I never know beforehand what is going to annoy him.”
She pondered. “I’ll tell you, then,” she said suddenly. “It has annoyed him that no one thought of asking him to give one of his water-colours to the sale.”
“Didn’t we?”
“No. Homer Davids was asked, and that made it ... rather more marked....”
“Oh, of course! I suppose we all forgot—”
She looked away. “Well,” she said, “I don’t suppose he likes to be forgotten.”
“You mean: to have his accomplishments forgotten?”
“Isn’t that a little condescending? I should say, his gifts,” she corrected a trifle sharply. Sharpness was so unusual in her that she may have seen my surprise, for she added, in her usual tone: “After all, I suppose he’s our most brilliant man, isn’t he?” She smiled a little, as if to take the sting from my doing so.
“Of course he is,” I rejoined. “But all the more reason—how could a man of his kind resent such a trifling oversight? I’ll write at once—”