“Gawd! I don’t know. He says he is a genius, and I suppose time will show whether it is true or not. But why do you want to talk of him?”
“I don’t know. I’m interested. Perhaps because he is different.”
“Well, you’ve had tea with him. That is about as much as is good for you. If you were my sister I wouldn’t let you know him.”
“Why not?”
“My dear girl, there are certain things in life that a young girl ought never to know.”
“What things? Is there anything worse than what your mother talks about at her meetings? Girls know all about that nowadays, and it is no good pretending we don’t.”
“Talking about them is one thing, coming in contact with them is another. Kühler is a Jew, and he comes from the East End, where they don’t have any decent pleasures. He’s infernally good-looking in a hurdy-gurdy sort of way. Gawd! Women look at him and off they go.”
“But he cares for poetry and the Bible and he loves pictures. . . .”
“It doesn’t seem to make any difference.”
During this talk he had begun to find Morrison extraordinarily pretty and lovable, and he said tenderly:—