He had a sense of jar when Miss Regan said:
“That’s rather a strange quotation for you, Nor.”
“Indeed?”
“ ‘Foolish night-fires, women’s and children’s wishes.’ He had a true notion of our futility, that gentle old poet.”
“I am in no fighting mood to-night, Olive,” replied Mrs. Wyndwood, gently.
“You don’t stand up for your sex?” the painter asked Miss Regan, in surprise. She had that resourceful, self-sufficient air which he associated with pioneers of female movements.
Olive shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Heaven forbid that I should be the advocatus diaboli.”
The tossing of the crowd threw up a long-haired, long-bearded man with a handsome leonine cast of features, who greeted the two ladies with an air of camaraderie.
“Ah, nous voilà encore,” he cried, joyously, adding in good English, though with a Russian accent, “Oh, Mrs. Wyndwood, you must see the little picture of the Christ-child by a young follower of our Nicolovitch. He is exiled three years already, and has established himself on your hospitable shores. Ah, how it makes a spiritual ray among your English platitudes! You will come too, Miss Regan?”
Olive, who had cast a droll glance towards the painter at the Russian’s awkward allusion to British banality, shook her head. “No, thank you. I hate children, and I am tired. You will find me here, Nor,” and she let herself sink into a lounge.