“Ah the beginning isn’t very good—it’s the whole thing!” said Overt, who had listened to this recital with extreme interest. “And you laid down the book and came after me?” he asked.
“That’s the way it moved me. I said to myself ‘I see it’s off his own bat, and he’s there, by the way, and the day’s over and I haven’t said twenty words to him.’ It occurred to me that you’d probably be in the smoking-room and that it wouldn’t be too late to repair my omission. I wanted to do something civil to you, so I put on my coat and came down. I shall read your book again when I go up.”
Our friend faced round in his place—he was touched as he had scarce ever been by the picture of such a demonstration in his favour. “You’re really the kindest of men. Cela s’est passé comme ça?—and I’ve been sitting here with you all this time and never apprehended it and never thanked you!”
“Thank Miss Fancourt—it was she who wound me up. She has made me feel as if I had read your novel.”
“She’s an angel from heaven!” Paul declared.
“She is indeed. I’ve never seen any one like her. Her interest in literature’s touching—something quite peculiar to herself; she takes it all so seriously. She feels the arts and she wants to feel them more. To those who practise them it’s almost humiliating—her curiosity, her sympathy, her good faith. How can anything be as fine as she supposes it?”
“She’s a rare organisation,” the younger man sighed.
“The richest I’ve ever seen—an artistic intelligence really of the first order. And lodged in such a form!” St. George exclaimed.
“One would like to represent such a girl as that,” Paul continued.
“Ah there it is—there’s nothing like life!” said his companion. “When you’re finished, squeezed dry and used up and you think the sack’s empty, you’re still appealed to, you still get touches and thrills, the idea springs up—out of the lap of the actual—and shows you there’s always something to be done. But I shan’t do it—she’s not for me!”