"Bruce Collier," Mrs. Walbridge pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I've heard his name. Who is he, Paul?"
"The chap who wrote 'Reek.' Crichell was talking about him here one night in the summer. There's the book an the table. He gave it to me."
She picked the book up and opened it. "What beautiful paper," she said slowly, "and I love the print, Paul."
He nodded. "Oh, yes. Nares publishes him. Now I'm going to put the Kakemono here, Mother." He indicated a blank space on the wall near his writing-table. "Will you get it? You won't be sorry to have it out of the girls' room, will you?"
She went obediently towards the door, and at it she turned.
"You'll be surprised, dear, but, do you know, I have got quite used to those monkeys, and really like them now!"
He looked up from filling his pipe and smiled at her, his narrow face—a face of a type so often seen nowadays in very young men—too small-featured, too clean-cut, too narrow in the brow, too lacking in the big old British qualities, both good and bad, and yet full of uncreative cleverness—lighted by whimsical, not unkindly, astonishment.
"'Violet Walbridge confesses to a passion for Honobosa Iccho,'" he declaimed, as if quoting a possible headline. "No, no, Mother darling, that won't do. You must stick to Marcus Stone. Trot along and get it, there's a dear."
She trotted along and got it, and brought it back, carefully rolled on its stick.
"Grisel will be sorry to find it gone," she said, as he hung it on the nail and let it slowly slide down the wall. "She loves it."