“Of course he looks pale! Anybody can look pale. You can look pale. I can look pale. How can he help looking pale if he eats all the luncheons you stuff him with? And if he looked red and fat do you suppose anybody would pay him to read love poems?”
Mrs. Hopp tossed her head.
“It’s all very well for you to talk. But you haven’t seen him, and I have. Besides, you haven’t been through things. If you knew what the world really is! If you knew, Sophie Derwall!” Mrs. Hopp, who was in receipt of comfortable alimony from a good-natured button manufacturer, darted upon her friend the meaning glances of one who has drained life’s goblet to the lees. “No, some people are fated to make mistakes. And to pay for them, Sophie. I know Professor Murch is unhappy. If you could only hear how he talks about Mr. and Mrs. Browning——!”
Mrs. Derwall was able to contain herself no longer.
“Julie Hopp!” she burst out. “Never speak to me again of Mr. and Mrs. Browning! Never! never! never! I can’t stand them. They were the two most colossal bores and fakes of the nineteenth century! Posilutely!”
The other lady was at first too horrified for words. Then dignity and scorn supported her, like caryatides, on either hand. Which spectacle, it must be said in passing, restored to Mrs. Derwall her tranquillity.
“Sophie Derwall,” at length demanded the outraged Mrs. Hopp, “how dare you say such monstrous things? Do you mean to tell me—you who pretend to read so much, to care so little for ephemeral literature—do you mean to tell me that you care nothing for Browning?” To register her intonation of the sacred syllables is a feat quite beyond the resources of unfeeling print.
“Very little, Julie,” responded Mrs. Derwall pleasantly, “very little. And the fact that ten million women go into spasms over him makes me care less. I prefer Lewis Carroll.”
At that moment Providence interposed, in the person of the maid.
“A gentleman in the reception-room, ma’am. What shall I——?”