"Haven't often had the chance," thought Charles. And if that was considerably unjust, he did not seem to mind at all, but rather was pleased by the knowledge that Mary observed his copious ironic manner, and found it baffling and queer.
"Well,—in conclusion, as you public speakers say,—I was only going to add that I didn't know enough to swallow my own medicine. The trouble seems to be—Well, take the horrible thing called sentiment now, that makes a sophisticated realist so sick. I look about me and, try as I will, I seem to see the disgusting thing very much alive and kicking—not something made up by a fourth-class writer to tickle shopgirls, but actually playing a prominent part in the hard world round me, all the time, everywhere. I seem—"
"I don't see how any one could deny that!"
"It wouldn't seem so, would it?" said Charles respectfully, and a sudden faint gleam came into his eye. "But really isn't that what they do, in effect? Here am I, as an observer, seeing men and women all round me doing things they don't want to do, giving up things they do want to do"—did his voice, too, acquire a thin edge?—"for immaterial reasons that can only be traced to some inner ideal—hated word! And then here am I, as a writer, required to deny all these observations of mine—and for what reason? Merely, as far as I can make out, to keep some sour chap with a defective liver, probably a German to boot—why are Germans so pessimistic, do you know?—from calling me a sentimental ass. Of course we admit," he prattled on, taking note of the passing streets, "that sentiment is weak and childish and Victorian, and 'idealism' is the screaming joke on Western civilization. Still, isn't it my only business as a writer to find out whether or not these contemptible things do act and react in the life I see? And if they do—must I represent the contrary, merely to please the peculiar taste of a small sad school that has no God but a second-hand mannerism bagged from dear old Europe?—By the way, are you in a special hurry now?"
"Why, no. Not at all."
"Good!—Eustace," called Charles through the tube, "drive more slowly."
And then, feeling himself completely master of the situation now, the young man said with quite a gay laugh:—
"And to add to all my other troubles, I've deliberately gone and taken Woman for my subject! That will make you smile! You remember you warned me in advance it was a theme I didn't know the first thing about."
But Mary was not observed to smile.
"I did say that, in fun once," she said, punctiliously, after a perceptible pause—"but, of course, I didn't mean it—in any literal sense. Indeed, I think—"