"Yes, I have read it, Mr. Bickerdike. It seemed to me a charmingly written romance."
The novelist, seated upon too low a chair, leaning forward so that his knees and chin almost touched, was not in himself a very graceful object; the contrast with his neighbour made him worse than grotesque. His visage was disagree ably animal as it smiled with condescension.
"You mean something by that," he remarked, with awkward attempt at light fencing.
There was barely a perceptible movement of Cecily's brows.
"I try to mean something as often as I speak," she said, in an amused tone.
"In this ease it is a censure. You take the side of those who find fault with my idealism."
"Not so; I simply form my own judgment."
Mr. Bickerdike was nervous at all times in the society of a refined woman; Mrs. Elgar's quiet rebuke brought the perspiration to his forehead, and made him rub his hands together. Like many a better man, he could not do justice to the parts he really possessed, save when sitting in solitude with a sheet of paper before him. Though he had a confused perception that Mrs. Elgar was punishing him for forcing her to speak of his book, he was unable to change the topic and so win her approval for his tact. In the endeavour to seem at ease, he became blunt.
"And what has your judgment to say on the subject?"
"I think I have already told you, Mr. Bickerdike."