"If I was religious I should——"
She interrupted me in the middle of my sentence.
"Mr. Rudd is writing a book," she said. "Aunt Netty asked him what it was about, and he said it was going to be a private book, a book that he would only write in his holidays for his own amusement. She asked him whether he had begun it. He said he was only planning it, but he had got an idea. He doesn't like Mabel Summer. He thinks she is laughing at him. She isn't really, but she sees through him. I don't mean he pretends to be anything he isn't, but she sees all there is to see, and no more. He likes one to see more. Aunt Netty sees a great deal more. I see less probably. I'm unfair to him, I know. I know I'm very intolerant. You are so tolerant."
I said I wasn't really, but kept my intolerances to myself out of policy. It was a prudent policy for one in my position.
"Mr. Rudd adores you," she said. "He says you are so acute, so sensitive and so sensible."
I said I was a good listener.
"Has he told you about his book?"
I said that he had told me what he had told them.
"M. Kranitski has such a funny idea about it," she said.
I asked what the idea was.