“‘It is,’ I returned.
“‘It is the beau garçon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?’ she suggested.
“‘Probably not,’ I said; ‘I suspect you are thinking, as usual, of Rupert Brooke. M’sieur Maugham may be regarded as beau, but he is not an elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may not call him a garçon.’
“‘It is,’ Lavina admitted; ‘that I am thinking of M’sieur Rupert, he is the beau garçon.’
“‘But,’ I said, ‘I want to know what you thought of M’sieur Somerset Maugham?’
“Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina would go on for the afternoon!
“‘I respect M’sieur Morn,’ said Lavina.
“‘Oh!’ thought I; ‘if she respects him, then I’m not going to get much.’
“‘His French is not mixed,’ she continued, referring to Maugham’s Parisian accent; ‘I speak much with him, and he listen, with but a small question here, and one there. It is the pure French from Paris, as M’sieur le Governeur speak, who is the pig. But when he speak much, then it is like the coral which breaks.’
“Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was impossible to bring her back. Her image of the brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed at Maugham’s stutter, which seldom escapes the most sophisticated observer. For those who interview him always find well cut suitings, clean collars and the stutter, and very little else that they can lay hold of with any degree of honesty. Which only goes to prove my own opinion that Maugham, as an observer, refuses to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at himself.