“You don’t look as if you believed me, Sophie,” protested Mrs. Hopp. “But just wait. It’s Professor Murch’s first lecture—Professor Richard Murch, you know. He’s going to give a course on Browning and the Higher Life.”
“O, is he?” The triumph with which Mrs. Hopp delivered herself of her momentous intelligence was only equalled by the calm with which her interlocutress received it. There ensued a brief pause, during which the two ladies studied each other. Then Mrs. Derwall suddenly realised that the floor was still hers.
“It’s awfully sweet of you, Julie. But I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m liter’y. I’m not a bit, you know—or poetical, either. And as for the Higher Life—why, really, Julie, life in the suburbs is high enough for me. I think you ought to take somebody who could appreciate it better. There’s Miss Higginson, for instance.”
“Miss Higginson!” burst out Mrs. Hopp. “I don’t want Miss Higginson, Sophie. I want you. And you needn’t tell me you don’t care for such things. I know you better. You are too modest. And if you could hear that man—the things he says——!”
Mrs. Derwall sat up very straight.
“H’m, my dear! No, thank you. I might gulp down Browning, perhaps. But I can’t swallow your Perch——”
“Murch, Sophie.”
“Murch, then, on top of him. There I draw the line.”
Mrs. Hopp looked a little agitated.
“What do you mean, Sophie? Do you—do you, perhaps, know anything against him?”