"Oh now that's very sweet of you!" she said. "But I mean to say I must lead. I started the Tooting 'Thursdays.' You mustn't think I'm just a frivolous little woman who cares for nothing but pleasure—I'm—I'm very interested in literature too. At the 'Thursdays' we have literary discussions. Next week the subject is Miss Verbena's novels. Now which do you think is Miss Verbena's greatest novel?"
He could only assume that she never saw a comic paper. "I—I'm afraid I haven't read any of them," he owned.
"Oh! Oh, you surprise me. Oh, but you must: they're enormously clever. Ettie Verbena is quite my favourite novelist, excepting perhaps that dear man who writes those immensely clever books that never offend in any way. So pure they are, such a true religious spirit in them! You know, Mr. Warrener, I'm a curious mixture. People tell me that I seem to enjoy myself just as much talking to a very clever man as when I'm romping through a barn-dance. And it's true you know; that is me. But I suppose you're more interested in stocks and shares, and things like that, than in books?"
"Well, I—I shouldn't describe myself as widely-read," answered Conrad; "still books do interest me."
"Oh well, then, you must come on one of my At-Home days next time," she said graciously; "one of the ladies you'll meet writes for 'Winsome Words,' and you'll meet several people you'll like."
"I should be charmed," he said.
The servant bustled in, and carried a bamboo table to the hearth. As she threw the teacloth over it, a cold wind blew through his hair.
"Do your cousins live in London?" inquired Mrs. Barchester-Bailey, with the tail of a worried eye on the maid's blunders.
"Yes," he said, "yes, they do. But I haven't seen them since I came back. I'm not sure whether they're in town."
"Are they married?"