"Disgust is hardly the word. Will you sit down? In Mrs. Hornibrook's absence, I must represent her. They are good enough to let me use the library; my own is poorly supplied."
Denzil took a chair.
"Are you busy with any particular subject?" he asked.
"The history of woman in Greece."
"Profound! I have as good as forgotten my classics. You read the originals?"
"After a fashion. I don't know much about the enclitic de, and I couldn't pass an exam. in the hypothetical sentences; but I pick up the sense as I read on."
Her tone seemed to imply that, after all, she was not ill-versed in grammatical niceties. She curtailed the word "examination" in an off-hand way which smacked of an undergraduate, and her attitude on the chair suggested that she had half a mind to cross her legs and throw her hands behind her head.
"Then," said Quarrier, "you have a good deal more right to speak of woman's claims to independence than most female orators."
She looked at him with a good-humoured curl of the lip.
"Excuse me if I mention it—your tone reminds me of that with which you began last evening. It was rather patronizing."