“There’s a plain and unadorned contempt for social rules in that, which appeals to me. Thanks; if you’ll let me, I’ll stay.”
“Of course!” Hester laughed. “You see I’m married to a lion, so I know just what lions do. Walter, Katharine and Mr. Griggs are going to stay to luncheon.”
“I’m delighted,” answered Crowdie, from behind his easel. He was putting in background with an enormous brush. “I say, Griggs—” he began again.
“Well?”
“Do you like Rockaways or Blue Points? I’m sure Hester has forgotten.”
“ ‘When love was the pearl of’ my ‘oyster,’ I used to prefer Blue Points,” answered Griggs, meditatively.
“So does Walter,” said Mrs. Crowdie.
“Was that a quotation—or what?” asked Katharine, speaking to Crowdie in an undertone.
“Swinburne,” answered the painter, indistinctly, for he had one of his brushes between his teeth.
“Not that it makes any difference what a man eats,” observed Griggs in the same thoughtful tone. “I once lived for five weeks on ship biscuit and raw apples.”