“You will find,” Mrs. Plinth interposed, “that we are not superficial readers.”
“We are eager to hear from you,” Miss Van Vluyck continued, “if the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own convictions or—”
“Or merely,” Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, “a sombre background brushed in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. Are you not primarily plastic?”
“I have always maintained,” Mrs. Ballinger interposed, “that you represent the purely objective method—”
Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. “How do you define objective?” she then inquired.
There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: “In reading you we don’t define, we feel.”
Osric Dane smiled. “The cerebellum,” she remarked, “is not infrequently the seat of the literary emotions.” And she took a second lump of sugar.
The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical language.
“Ah, the cerebellum,” said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. “The Club took a course in psychology last winter.”
“Which psychology?” asked Osric Dane.