“Do you mean I must write about it?” and Paul struck the note of the listening candour of a child.
“Of course you must. And tremendously well, do you mind? That takes off a little of my esteem for this thing of yours—that it goes on abroad. Hang ‘abroad!’ Stay at home and do things here—do subjects we can measure.”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me,” Overt said, deeply attentive. “But pardon me if I say I don’t understand how you’ve been reading my book,” he added. “I’ve had you before me all the afternoon, first in that long walk, then at tea on the lawn, till we went to dress for dinner, and all the evening at dinner and in this place.”
St. George turned his face about with a smile. “I gave it but a quarter of an hour.”
“A quarter of an hour’s immense, but I don’t understand where you put it in. In the drawing-room after dinner you weren’t reading—you were talking to Miss Fancourt.”
“It comes to the same thing, because we talked about ‘Ginistrella.’ She described it to me—she lent me her copy.”
“Lent it to you?”
“She travels with it.”
“It’s incredible,” Paul blushed.
“It’s glorious for you, but it also turned out very well for me. When the ladies went off to bed she kindly offered to send the book down to me. Her maid brought it to me in the hall and I went to my room with it. I hadn’t thought of coming here, I do that so little. But I don’t sleep early, I always have to read an hour or two. I sat down to your novel on the spot, without undressing, without taking off anything but my coat. I think that’s a sign my curiosity had been strongly roused about it. I read a quarter of an hour, as I tell you, and even in a quarter of an hour I was greatly struck.”