‘And why not, Mr Whelpdale?’
‘You should only read of beautiful things, of happy lives. This book must depress you.’
‘But why will you imagine me such a feeble-minded person?’ asked Dora. ‘You have so often spoken like this. I have really no ambition to be a doll of such superfine wax.’
The habitual flatterer looked deeply concerned.
‘Pray forgive me!’ he murmured humbly, leaning forwards towards the girl with eyes which deprecated her displeasure. ‘I am very far indeed from attributing weakness to you. It was only the natural, unreflecting impulse; one finds it so difficult to associate you, even as merely a reader, with such squalid scenes.
The ignobly decent, as poor Biffen calls it, is so very far from that sphere in which you are naturally at home.’
There was some slight affectation in his language, but the tone attested sincere feeling. Jasper was watching him with half an eye, and glancing occasionally at Dora.
‘No doubt,’ said the latter, ‘it’s my story in The English Girl that inclines you to think me a goody-goody sort of young woman.’
‘So far from that, Miss Dora, I was only waiting for an opportunity to tell you how exceedingly delighted I have been with the last two weeks’ instalments. In all seriousness, I consider that story of yours the best thing of the kind that ever came under my notice. You seem to me to have discovered a new genre; such writing as this has surely never been offered to girls, and all the readers of the paper must be immensely grateful to you. I run eagerly to buy the paper each week; I assure you I do. The stationer thinks I purchase it for a sister, I suppose. But each section of the story seems to be better than the last. Mark the prophecy which I now make: when this tale is published in a volume its success will be great. You will be recognised, Miss Dora, as the new writer for modern English girls.’
The subject of this panegyric coloured a little and laughed. Unmistakably she was pleased.