"Not always."
"You are truthful."
"Am I?"
"Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example—ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others—oh, the humbugs!"
In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches.
"This is caricature," said Mark.
"Studies from life."
"I'm glad I don't know those—gentlemen."
"You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."
On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems.