If Mr. Bent had been wise he would have left well alone; as it was, he went on to embroider the theme a little recklessly. “If one wants to be in the swim nowadays,” he said, “one has to go into ecstasies over de Barsac or Roger Filkison. You read Roger Filkison, of course?”
Mr. Tipham admitted, with some reluctance, that he did not.
“Oh, he’s the man, you know,” continued Mr. Bent, “who writes the testimonials for the liver and kidney pills—the neo-realism they call it; very clever and morbid. I don’t like it myself, but I know several Cambridge men who think it the most poignant literature since Verlaine.”
As Messrs. Rankin and Grady were both Cambridge men, the pleasantry fell flat, and there was an awkward silence, till Mr. Tipham, lifting his eyebrows again, said in his most condescending manner:
“Ought one to be amused?”
And, though Mr. Bent tried to look unconcerned, everybody realised that he had been rapped rather smartly over the knuckles. After this unfortunate incident there was a general feeling of constraint, which lasted through the rest of dinner. But when Mr. Chase had withdrawn to read prayers to his house, and cigars had been lit in the sitting-room, Mr. Tipham unbent once more and became enthusiastic over the merits of the post-impressionists—the dazzling designs of Van Googlen, the superb greens of le Beaupère, and the masterly way in which Grummer painted flesh with one stroke of a glue-brush.
“I don’t count him amongst the greatest masters,” said Mr. Bent, who had recovered his equanimity, “because he can’t paint pimples.”
“Perhaps,” replied Mr. Tipham loftily, “you have never seen his ‘Lepers bathing.’”
“No, I haven’t,” said Mr. Bent warmly, “and I can’t say that I want to.”
“But, in that case,” remarked Mr. Tipham, “you are hardly in a position to judge, are you?”