"No," she said thoughtfully, "I never did, either. But there must be a good many people like them, Jerry, I am sure. And if they knew as many long words as Mr. Dickens, that is the way they would talk, I think."
I have never heard a better criticism of the literary giant of the nineteenth century.
She never made the slightest secret of her affection for me nor of our thorough comprehension of each other and our similarity of tastes. Quiet always, or almost always, with Roger, with me she chattered like a bird, and I could give her opinion on many matters of which he knew nothing.
"Jerry and I like Botticelli and caviar sandwiches and street songs and Egypt, and Roger does not," she told Clarence King once—I can hear him roar now.
"I can talk better to you than to Roger," she confided to me one day on the rocks; "if it were the custom to have two husbands, Jerry, I should like you for the other—but it is not," she added mournfully.
I agreed to this with regret and she went on thoughtfully.
"You see, Roger would not like it, even if it was the custom, so I could not, anyway."
"That is very amiable of you," I said.
"It is strange how I always think of what he would like," she added, with perfect sincerity, I am sure. "One day when he would not let me have any more bread—it was so bad for my voice, you know—I got very angry and spoke crossly to him, but still he would not, and I told him that since he did not want me to sing he had better let me spoil my voice, if I wanted to—and you would think he would, would you not, Jerry?"
"No," I answered soberly, "no, Margarita, I wouldn't. He knew you really wanted your voice more than the bread, so he gave you what you wanted."